Cruel games of irrationality
by Aischenna
Summary: Plagued by nightmares, tortured by her own mind, haunted by her mother's judging eyes and occasionally drunk in a bar with Ino, one workaholic Haruno Sakura doesn't know how to deal with the Great Issue in her life that is called Uchiha Sasuke. [actual shinobi work, Blank Period, PTSD, and I ignore canon because they butchered SasuSaku. Yes, I'm here to butcher it even more.]
1. The case of forlorn hope

_A/N: okay, so just to make everything clear, this is not a vanilla Blank Period story. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, so please, if you don't like it, just leave it. Just read the title - I assure you, this story will be cruel thing. ((Otherwise, please have fun with this!:))_

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**The case of forlorn hope**

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They might say she was a goddamned coward, but she wasn't ready. She hated the sad looks her mother, Tsunade and Ino, too, sent her way, she hated thinking about it, and above all, she absolutely loathed speaking about it. So she just avoided her issues entirely and escaped into what she did best. Work.

She was working double, sometimes even triple shifts—in the hospital, in the children's clinic, in the laboratory and really, anywhere, maniacally, maybe, just to get a peace of mind. From what?

Just from thinking about him.

Sakura was now only a few months shy of twenty, and she'd had no experiences. No experiences with boys, no experiences with a relationship and all she knew was from those dry textbooks and what Ino babbled about and still, it was way too weird to even think of Sai as a sexual being. And Ino? She was no surprise, she wasn't even bothered by her explicit recitals of her bedroom adventures. The Yamanaka had been a bit perverted ever since they hit puberty face-first and she had her first time lost to a shinobi eight years their senior.

But it made Sakura _so_ angry. Not having any experiences because of the simple fact: she had been waiting. Waiting for something that might not even happen if his lack of communication was any indication at all… And she did all that _waiting around_ just because he had made a promise to her that _she'd held close to her heart_. And a promise, that felt like a sweet dream, an illusion as the months went by. And a promise she clutched onto desperately, _the promise of someday_.

So when she was forced to watch her peers beginning to pair off and lead happy lives, she adopted a façade. The jolly, carefree Sakura of the past that hadn't seen war and real gore and was still madly in love. _It's okay,_—she dutifully repeated and repeated—because she could wait some _more_. The last five hundred and sixty-nine days were nothing. Neither were her issues and nightmares that had _him_ cast as their main villain.

Then, a drunken Ino suggested going on dates after she told her how very lonely and alone she felt, that she hadn't even heard of her teammate since he had left and hardly slept which was more of the fault of her seeing the _chidori_ go through her ribcage every night (_whenever she closed her eyes_) than anything else. Besides, that time, utterly sloshed and out of control in that crappy, but undoubtedly _fucking_ cheap bar, it seemed like a good idea, going on dates. Boy, who was she kidding? That moment, it seemed like a _glorious _idea!

However, soon, she realized, those dates were all but an utter bore to her. She had thought about that_ that was how Sasuke must have felt_ when they were twelve and she'd talked his ears off in a desperate attempt to have him fall madly in love with her.

Men were boring. That was a fact.

They chit-chatted, tried to flirt with her with bold lines that honestly repulsed her, they tried to flatter her when it was clear they just wanted to get into her pants… The worst of all was that they thought her dumb. Just because she nodded along politely as if finding their self-centered stories entertaining, and smiled at them prettily, when in reality, all she wanted was to get away from them… But you couldn't really end a date in the first five minutes, could you?

Though, whenever she showed even a bit of annoyance or let her façade drop, those men just abruptly stood up and paid for their meals, date forgotten. She noticed, they were afraid of making her mad. And soon, she realized she had _just_ the perfect weapon against men when they butchered the date in the first ten minutes. All it cost was one displeased frown and they were _gone_.

She _must_ _be_ intimidating to the male population of Konoha ninja—she speculated as she watched the latest one run without a second look thrown back. There was the fact that she'd been taught by two Hokages... and then, she had teammates that had a chakra demon sealed into him and other one who had been an S-class criminal since he was fifteen. Also, she could break walls with her little finger if she so pleased.

But there still was the problem: she desperately wanted those experiences and a change in her life. So she decided to go, once again, on one of those missions. Seduction missions, changing into the role of a sparrow… an intimidating challenge for an equally as intimidating kunoichi.

Kakashi clearly wanted to talk her out of it, trying to, once again, shield her from _all_ _bad_ _and_ _dangerous_ the world had in stock for _everyone_. But it was ridiculous, considering she had already had some practice in these type of jobs, but of course she didn't have the heart to tell him that, and only resorted to appreciate his concern for her well-being. She had gone on those missions with the ANBU when she was at the tender age of fifteen, months before Naruto was back in the village.

So when she got around speaking with Tsunade, the older woman just nodded and went back to drinking, no questions asked. She knew her apprentice was capable so she didn't even ask the details of the mission. That was when she became even surer about something she had been mulling over since she was in the ripe age of fifteen**: ** her abilities had been practically groomed for her to be an assassin. Medical ninjutsu was sure useful and, if done right, basically undetectable.

And then, she thought—as she left her shishou to her business in that very same _crappy and fucking cheap_ bar they frequented with Ino—it was only _logical_. It was not by chance that Tsunade was the kunoichi with the highest kill-count in the village. Maybe, even all across the great nations.

So Sakura started relearning skills that were important for this kind of missions, while she was running herself ragged in the hospital. Skills like make-up—because she needed to cover up pinkish scars along her arms and the small nicks of kunai on her hands. The worst was the byakugou, her _proudest mark_ that also came with the most problems—what with that being a deadly giveaway of her person. And it was only for so long she could do a henge.

And then, she learned to mold her hair in different hairstyles, dye it with the most ridiculous things and she learned how to professionally disguise herself from the scraps of clothing she had on herself and also, a bit of dancing and singing didn't hurt either. Preparing for these kinds of missions was _fun_, even if the work itself was considered to be fishy at the very best, lowly at the very worst.

She managed the first mission with flying colours—naturally—and she went back for more after that. Her determination wasn't failing even when Kakashi still tried to talk her out of pursuing her new obsession. It was only the perfectionist in her that wanted to delve deeper in the business, bizarrely curious and craving for more. It might have been for the rush of the adrenalin. Or maybe she wanted that change in her life _that_ bad. Or perhaps, she resisted for the sole reason of annoying Kakashi and only accepted mission that involved seduction.

Though, still, she wouldn't have said she enjoyed them.

But these were needed to be done sooner or later anyway, and clan heiresses were definitely not allowed to go on these missions. It was only logical that she was sent to these. Besides, even just the notion of dropping _the_ _ever so lovely and angelic_ Hyuuga Hinata in a situation like that was laughable and even though Tenten would have managed just fine, she would have gone bonkers just by thinking about applying layers upon layers of makeup not juts on her face, but on her body too.

By then, Sakura would say life was _getting better_. Not the _best_, and definitely not _perfect_, but it was a start and she was at the very least entertained. She still spent the majority of her time in the hospital or with the war orphans but sometimes it felt simply good to turn off the world and pamper herself with makeup and luxurious clothing, even just for those few hours while she was fishing for information.

The assassinations, now, those were an entirely different deal.

Most of the time, it was written out for her how to make it happen. Sometimes, when her interference with the victim shouldn't be made obvious, Kakashi just said: _make it look like a heart attack_. However, most of the times, the clientele had specific instructions, gruesome details written out already, so Sakura was there to dissect a human body, cut of limbs, paint with blood and ruin the expensive, silk clothing that the village had provided for her missions.

Not that she would have worn it after the whole business. Still, it just felt very, very wrong.

Then came the first real shock, tearing up her every-days. Naruto wanted to marry the Hyuuga princess, the _ever so lovely and angelic_ Hinata. And the dumbass just _had_ the eloquence of casually dropping a bomb that big in the middle of their weekly dates at Ichiraku's… Sakura nearly spit out a mouthful of greenery at that exact moment.

Though, it shouldn't have been that big of surprise for her, but really, Naruto being the first one to marry from the Konoha Twelve? It felt strange.

And the realization abruptly hit her how very fast the years were going by and she still was only plain, little Sakura running around the hospital. Without change, a blossoming love, and without a chance, Sakura still had her work, her façade and her terrible, terrible nightmares hand-in-hand with her issues and insecurities, but that was it, really.

Because yes, there was his promise, but two years were entirely too long to only hold onto a _single promise of someday_, which she, by now, didn't even know if she wanted him to keep at all. And whenever she let herself have the luxury of thinking about _him_, then always came those terrible, terrible images, with Sasuke's hand buried deep in her ribcage, the chidori shocking her system with its electricity, with his _cold smile and deadly, deadly eyes_.

Oh, and beside all that, he didn't even bother writing to her. Not even a word of his well-being. Not even a sign of him being _alive_.

She knew Kakashi got one letter in every two months or so, heck, she had even caught a glimpse of Naruto with his fucking bird holding onto his shoulder!

And she kept receiving nothing in the last two years. She only had the reoccurring nightmares with his _cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_. Sakura would lie if she said it hadn't hurt her. Or made her angry. Or very confused. Or very afraid.

Sakura was at the point where she bottled up entirely too much and hid it not just from the eyes of the public, but even from herself. It resulted in making her snappier than usual and unnecessarily meaner to anyone in her vicinity.

She thrived in ignoring how messed up she really was over a boy—well, a man by now, probably. Sakura tried compartmentalizing, craving to finally understand herself, his actions and character from the limited knowledge she had on her hands. Understand what to do, what to feel and how to greet him when he finally found his way back in the village.

So three days later, after mulling it over again and again, and only for it to result in an even bigger turmoil than before, she trudged back to her parents' house, seeking advice and any form of support they could offer for their troubled daughter. Spent from the chakra usage, tortured by her thoughts, and still in her medical clothes, she let herself in her former home.

It took some beating around the bush and a half a mug of tea when she finally managed to blurt it out: "Naruto is marrying."

Mebuki just nodded and said: "Oh."

Her mother had clearly heard the talk of the town way before her daughter's visit, but she didn't interrupt her while she was trying to open up. Sakura was sure that Mebuki hadn't an idea why she was so shaken by the simple news of her best friend marrying. So her mother just continued with watching her with the eyes of a worried mother that to Sakura, felt like a penetrating gaze of a hawk.

"I'm glad," Sakura added like an afterthought, with a gentle smile, finding her mother's lacy tablecloth to be overly fascinating and hiding her hands in her oversized lab coat, "he's grown so much. I'm proud of him and the life he now leads. It really is… different."

They both heard her father leave the house with a jolly cry and suddenly, her mother let a carnivorous smile curl up her painted lips as she leaned forward, "And what are you really here for?" Her eyes roamed over her daughter's unnaturally blank expression, latching onto the forced smile that was surely taught to all shinobi within the first year of the academy. "You can talk. Your father is out of earshot now."

And those were the words that broke her carefully constructed façade.

"I think I should let _him_ go," Sakura confessed out of the blue, her lips trembling and voice choking up, hitching up an entire octave by her last word.

Just like that time, so many years ago, when she confessed her love for the _lost boy from the cursed clan_ to her mother. She once again looked small and vulnerable, nothing like the bull-headed, confident woman she had grown up to be.

Sakura turned away, ashamed at the way how that simple sentence seemed break her, all while hugging herself with her arms to get a sense of protection from the judging look her mother was unintentionally shooting her way.

"The Uchiha?" Mebuki asked, even though she already knew the answer.

Sakura nodded, because, really, who else would have been it? It was painful to admit it how hard she was taking his absence. Or him, in general. She had been in love with him since they were what? Twelve? Six? _Four_? Either way, it was far too long to survive on a _single promise of someday_ and daily nightmares. Even if she held both close to her _patched-up, fragile heart_.

When it was clear that Sakura had nothing else to say, Mebuki took a different approach to unravelling her daughter's labile emotions. She was sure, if Sakura continued to go on like this, anxious and unable to rationalize her own feelings, she would soon break. And this time, it might not only be her heart.

So Mebuki told her daughter the only thing she had in mind: "Maybe, take time to get to know other people. Dates could do wonders with you, Sakura," she suggested gently with love shining in her eyes.

To that, as if Sakura had forgotten how uncomfortable she was in front of her mother's judging eyes, she scowled, hardly able not to shot her advice immediately down. Ino had said the exact same thing and look at her now! Nothing was _good_, just _getting better_. And it had nothing to do with dating. It was because of _work_.

"I've been on twenty-three dates in the last two months. With twenty-three _different_ men," it was bitter on her tongue and she failed to notice the curious smile his mother was sporting.

Sakura failed to blame herself for her dedicated, _patched-up and very fragile heart_ (_that he held in his hand whenever she closed her eyes_) and her unabashedly high standards, because in the shadow of Uchiha Sasuke—even if he was far, far away and decidedly uninterested in her—no one seemed to fit the bill for her. No one else managed to occupy her thoughts as well as Sasuke did.

"And?" Mebuki prodded further, hardly able to conceal her mirth at her stubborn daughter. Of course Sakura still reserved the right to be as choosey over the men as she was over her shinobi equipments.

"They are boring, annoying and single-minded," Sakura declared with the defiance of an all-knowing sage, nose upturned and her voice just a slightly bit on the shrilly side.

She was too deeply in love for her to see clearly, to find new values in the men that bombarded her with date-requests, men that were unable to make her take a double-take, the same men that couldn't even _get close to her heart_, not the way Sasuke could.

"They're _men_," Mebuki pointed out helpfully with a smile that was a clear indication of her amusement. "But I think you should ponder on something a bit more if that's the case," at that, Sakura arrogantly cocked a pink eyebrow at her mother, her interest piqued for the first time, "Have you fallen out of love yet?"

That effectively shut Sakura up for the rest of the day.

Because she did know she hadn't. And for the first time in the last two years, it kept on bothering her more and more during the next week. Loving Sasuke was decidedly second-nature to her, even when she was afraid of him, his _cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes. _And she still didn't know why her heart still burned for him and only for him. Because, by now, it shouldn't have!

The love in her heart should have extinguished the moment he had raised a kunai on her. That was the why, when back, during the war, it had been so easy to fall under his genjutsu. It was easy for her to believe he had wanted to kill her, because he had attempted to do so many times before (_and so many times now_). It was _easy_.

And this realization left her just more confused, her brain filled up to the brim with questions he never bothered to answer, though granted, the same questions she was too scared to ask and to which, she feared his responses. She suspected that what he had to say for those would not be to her liking.

Her _patched-up, fragile heart_ would have been put through an intense trauma should that conversation ever to occur. So Sakura aimed for it to never, ever occur.

Three weeks later, still too engrossed and bothered by her own thoughts, she found herself functioning on auto-pilot, going on more of those missions, going to the hospital to work her unforgiving shifts and going to _that_ _crappy and fucking cheap_ bar to get shitless drunk with Ino in every two weeks and going to her parents on Sunday brunches and organizing board game parties with Sai, Naruto and Kakashi to jolly throw some figurines at their faces when they cheat, doing all these repeatedly and regularly and it felt _good_ to Sakura.

Only during those night offs did she feel the best in her own skin, mostly due to the euphoria of being together, behaving like a proper family even if one member of said family was missing.

Besides, it felt good to finally win at something and occasionally outsmart the others. The rules were easy: it was a win, if you could cheat undetected, which was no small feat with two Kage-level shinobi and an ANBU in the same room, but she loved challenges and she loved succeeding even more. So far, Sakura had won four times out of eleven.

This time, she managed to keep herself above water and hold onto her façade, pretending to be the same jolly Sakura that didn't have blood seeped into her hands and death in her eyes (_and a chidori in her heart_).

It was on Naruto's wedding when it was the hardest, the beautiful spring day in the middle of April that seemed perfect in every possible way. The sun shone, there was a comfortable breeze and Sakura was still only able to smile forced smiles at her peers.

She could easily see the _blurred lines of friendship and being more_ slowly disappear between the soon-to-be couples. Hands in hands, intimate looks and standing only a breath away from each other… Once you have picked up the first little sign, the unmistakable little gleam in their eyes, the others were practically impossible to miss.

And she had no one to make moon-eyes at or beam at or kiss in greeting or just generally do something romantic with. Even Kakashi had a partner what with his nose buried deep in his cursed book and chuckling to himself, while Naruto walked down the aisle hand-in-hand with the _ever so lovely and angelic_ Hinata. They looked perfe—

Sakura nearly jumped when _his_ fucking bird landed on her shoulder. Just out of the blue, claws were embedded in her shoulder and she got to face with a hawk that had at least the decency to not scream bloody murder in her face while the ceremony was starting.

The animal was much like his owner in mannerism—unpredictable and abrupt, as the bird showed one of his clawed legs into her face with a message tied to it, mutely urging her to take it.

And out of spite, Sakura was half-tempted to just immediately shoo it away. But her curiosity overpowered her pride and she reached out for the letter on the bird's leg while somehow managing to pet the animal. The poor thing had got nothing to do with her personal issues concerning his owner, Sakura decided.

But before her rising hopes could even get a tiny bit into her head and trick her brain, those very same hopes abruptly got squashed as she realized with her shaking hands and trembling lips that the letter was meant for _Naruto_. Most probably containing a simple _congratulations_, but without excuses why he couldn't be here. Uchiha Sasuke wasn't one who would tell anyone his reasons, or his private matters what he had got going on, out in the great wide open.

So after the ceremony on this lovely day, Sakura passed the blond the letter, promptly shooed away the bird that must have found her shoulder way too comfortable as he perched on, unwilling to move away, and she left the wedding few hours earlier that originally intended.

The sole reason of that, being her pager, that insistently chirped, letting her know of an emergency case in the hospital.

She didn't go back to the party—bloodied and spent, exhausted after a three hour long surgery that drained her and resulted in her numbly blinking up at the white walls of her office, thinking and thinking, and unwilling to believe that he still _held_ _her patched-up, fragile heart in his hand_.


	2. Only three words

_A/N: Fasten your seatbelts before the angst (may involve a bit of PTSD too). Also, do not hate the characters. They are just like us, humans, and with that, total monsters. Otherwise, have fun with this one! :)_

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**Only three words**

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Not ever three days later, with the perfect image of Naruto and _the ever so lovely and angelic Hinata_ vivid in her mind, and with the threat of devastating rains and humidity—that always messed up her hair—looming over her head, Sakura once again, found herself unable to stop her thoughts from running wild.

She rationally knew that she was overanalyzing. She kept comparing the life she had imagined for herself when she was no more than twelve to her current one, and well, the results weren't in favor to her twenty-year-old-self.

When she was twelve, life seemed _easy_, what with the promise of Team 7 and their camaraderie strong in her head. She dreamed about a future that involved all of them. Her, dating Sasuke, maybe preparing for their marriage while them being the perfect, perfect couple and she, laughing in Ino's face and saying: _I won_!

That was what she was dreaming about then, ridiculous of a notion it may be, but it was her primary, but quite idillic goal at that time. She didn't plan herself a long kunoichi career, definitely not like the one she had ended up with. Her entire family always said she should be content with being a mere genin and back then, Sakura didn't argue, just a accepted it as a fact.

It was just before applying for the chuunin exam when she first realized her plans were about to be thwarted. Soon, she was on board with her boys' competitiveness and wanted to prove her worth with contributing to the missions and then contributing some more, and then, getting into trouble, and… and before she had succeeded with her petty goals, Sasuke… just left.

Well, by now Sakura knew that, that was what gave her the final push to start changing her formerly oh-so-convenient, simple plans. As if a switch had turned in her brain, that much of the change she experienced in her demeanor.

Sakura soon realized that without power, she would never be able to stand side by side with the boys, rather than just behind them. She thought that healing was just the way—the best way she could properly support them without causing trouble in her wake, thought naive Sakura, not having an inkling of an idea about further applications of medical ninjutsu.

But Tsunade took her, the _scared and useless girl_ under her wings and made it her mission to mold her into someone that, simply put, _counted_. She introduced her to poisons, to chakra scalpels and to the weakest points of the human body that even a chuunin-ranked shinobi would never had the benefit of knowing. She studied the human body like she never thought possible, without the embarrassment what those torrid teenage years brought. Dissociating—she utilized that technique quite often back than.

She only learned the harsh reality of biology, the weakest points of the bones where it was the easiest to break them, learned about special points of the spinal cord and where to severe it to cause different results and she learned methods that was considered unethical even between shinobi folks. All in all, she learned to take benefit of the anatomy of any human body and _boy_, _did she like the results_!

It was always somewhat fascinating, also a bit terrifying knowing all that, but having a bit of advantage over her peers, biology-wise, was amazing, even though her training sessions were grueling and very taxing for the twelve-year-old Sakura.

She learned the arts of kunoichi, using her body and her looks, because men always tended to underestimate women. According to Tsunade, that was the greatest force of a kunoichi; having the element of surprise. The men were always ready to protect them, and oftentimes tended to forget that all shinobi were raised to be a vicious fighters, no matter the gender.

And after all these training sessions, all that hard work to reach her limits and then when surpassing them, continuing to always go further and then surpass those too, Sakura at twenty, felt like she achieved nothing.

Though, yes, she had the work she had never even dared to dream ever getting close to before.

But besides that? Nightmares. Dreaming about the _chidori_ ripping her body apart and his c_old smirk and his deadly, deadly eyes_, holding _her heart in his hand_ and finishing her off without a notion of hesitance displayed on his expression.

Her present was nothing like the life she had dreamed about, that vanilla fantasy world that ignored the cruelty of shinobi life. And that simple recognition swiftly managed to uproot her artfully constructed world and now she was undecided what to do, how to continue when it all just felt purposeless… If she were to be ironic, she would say that all felt _useless._

And she wanted to do something meaningful with the time she was given. And looking down at the orphans in her children's clinic, even though she was terrified by the simple notion, she may have just found a new goal in her life, that for the first time in so long, wasn't influenced by one particular Uchiha.

In the end, it really was no surprise she found her way back to her mother's judging eyes.

"I want to adopt," she blurted out, cursing her mouth as it had moved in its own accord. Now, it didn't even take two sips of tea before the words were out in the open.

But they seemed to do the deal as Mebuki blanched.

"Oh," her mother said not quite as eloquently as she usually did, not having any idea how she should react to something so abrupt and unexpected her daughter attempted to pull through with this time—and Sakura could easily read all of that from her mother's contorted features. "How come?"

"Ino has a standing suspicion that's she's already pregnant," that's why the cow didn't want to visit that_ crappy and fucking cheap_ bar downtown, that bitch. It grated on Sakura's nerves, because while she was torturing her brain with thinking, thinking and thinking some more, she really was in need of a break and that, she only achieved while _shitless drunk_. Sakura now had no doubts that that was the reason why Tsunade occasionally drank herself under the table. "And Naruto is married, so I guess..." and then, Sakura proceeded to shrug as if that would have been enough of a reason.

But it was definitely not enough for Mebuki, who just sent her daughter the sharpest look Sakura had ever received throughout her life, even counting her teenage years when she was stubborn beyond believes and all reasons.

Sakura had no significant other currently available for nestling urges, but she still did not want to be left behind. Heck, her entire life was about catching up to the others and not to be left behind by her boys, ever since they graduated the shinobi academy. Really, it wasn't that big of a surprise she wanted to hop on the wagon, too.

Peer pressure, although might only be a cliché, still affected her in a way she didn't believe possible and that simple fact immensely grated on her nerves

"So you want to do what all the other younglings are doing," her mother concluded, sipping her tea in thought, not particularly angry but neither overly happy with the ideas her daughter was sharing. "Why adopt?"

Sakura gulped at that, already expecting that question. She, once again, resorted to admire her mother's lacy tablecloth, feeling small without her lab coat and the thousands of weapons hidden inside imperceptible pockets. She felt naked in civil clothing, vulnerable almost.

"The clinic... we have a lot of sweet children, that lost their home and are alone. I... want to help more." She anxiously chewed on her lip while waiting for the verdict, unable to look her mother properly in the eyes.

Those judging looks haunted her well into adulthood.

"So you want to shelter another little orphan from going banana and be the next Uchiha Sasuke," Mebuki declared dryly with a firm scowl morphing her harsh features, and Sakura blinked owlishly down on the tablecloth because her mother was, once again, _very much_ right.

Even his name seemed to flip that careful balance that Sakura had established within herself. The thought of him, the one she had loved through her entire life and the one who she kept seeing every night with his _cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_… She knew she didn't want the life like that to anyone.

"Though, I've already decided," Sakura objected lightly, her hands fidgeting under the table. She, even though dedicated to the cause, the whole thing still made her reluctant to go against her mother's wishes, and it definitely didn't change the fact that she still was a tiny bit squeamish about the whole ordeal, terrified that her new-found ideas were, after all, still inspired by that one particular Uchiha.

"I still want to adopt." Her voice came out squeaky and unnaturally small and it was enough for her mother to know that she had won.

So Mebuki started with her own speech, breezy and effortless as she sipped her tea and made Sakura tremble with something she recognized as doubts and anger and _fear_.

"Darling, you should at the very least, gain some experiences. I think," when Sakura opened her mouth to rebuke it, Mebuki promptly snapped, loathing to be interrupted, even if it was her twenty-year-old, decidedly deadly and very much adult daughter. "Let me finish at first, Sakura. I think, you should go safe… Adopt a cat or a dog, perhaps, maybe a _turtle_, because god knows you have hectic shifts and ridiculous workaholic tendencies. A child would starve for days before you even have the luxury to go home for an hour-long nap."

And that was it, with Haruno Mebuki giving the final verdict.

And thinking about it, her mother was right. If she craved to be _shitless drunk_ and going on S-class missions every other week, and obviously not ready to give up on either, much less on both… Sakura was definitely not ready for motherhood.

Her mother was _right_. So the head medic of Konoha's hospital, the discipline of two Hokages, currently one of the best assassin in the village and part of that infamous Team 7, that very same Haruno Sakura, didn't argue with her all-knowing mother furthermore.

It wasn't until her next seduction mission, around one week later, when she found a stray cat in the rain, curled into itself and trembling in the corner of a teashop in a little village far away from anything shinobi-related or influenced. Without a moment of hesitation, Sakura lifted the dirtied, white cat in her arms and took him up to her hotel room.

Immediately, she started healing him. He had an ugly fever and the rain didn't help with it either.

For three days, she had prolonged her stay in the little village so she could take care of the kitty, nursing him back to life, saving him from death's doorstep.

On the fourth day, she woke abruptly.

The cat jumped on her chest to wake her and he blinked down at her with the bluest eyes she had ever seen and with an entirely too wide of a grin, reminding her eerily of Naruto. Honestly, the tomcat looked like the carbon copy of her beloved blonde friend.

On the other hand, she wasn't even sure if _cats_ were supposed to _grin_.

"I pledge my loyalty to you," the cat said in a roughened up, snippy voice as if it was the greatest achievement one could reach in their entire life, and it was Sakura's turn to blink at feline owlishly. This entire time, she had nursed a ninneko!

"Oh?" She said ever so intelligently and sat up, mindful of the cat while knowing perfectly well that the animal was capable. Of what, well, she wasn't entirely convinced she wanted to know. Sakura had her encounter with deadly ninken before and not all animals were as docile as Kakashi's sweet dogs when out of duty. "You will?"

"Yes," the small but intimidating ball of fur indignantly declared his intentions. "You helped me when no one did. You deserve my servitude. What's your name, kunoichi?"

Well, she had got herself a cat—Sakura thought bewildered. (_At least, in the end, it wasn't a turtle._)

It was an irritatingly humid, late spring afternoon, just two weeks after Naruto's wedding when she arrived home from her prolonged mission. She sent a missive to Kakashi, informing him of her successful mission and her being safely home, without sporting a new battle scar—just like always—and then that she could be found in her hospital office for the duration of the next couple of days.

Not even half an hour after hurling her white lab coat on, she was preparing a surgery for an ANBU squad leader that had two of his joints broken. One wrong move from her and the lad was paralyzed for his entire life. And with Tsunade out drinking (_again_), her colleagues had graciously offered her the opportunity of leading the surgery.

After an all nighter, seven coffees and a two-hour-long power nap later, she had her blonde friend barrage into her office with his belly laugh and utter joy of a man high on endorphin and probably on sex, too.

"I just heard you're back!" He hollered and Sakura abruptly woke, already hurling a kunai at the source of the voice. Naruto idly caught it and twirled it around his fingers, nothing damning his jolly attitude. "How are you doing Sakura-chan?"

She shot him a pointed look, absently gesturing to the bags under her eyes while petting her newly acquired ninja cat that didn't even stir to the new comer, which was a feat in itself.

Sakura really hoped that she wasn't stinking as she had yet the time to shower.

"How is married life to you?" She asked lightly, quietly, making some space on her messy desk for him too see above the paperwork that was standing proud on her workspace. She casually dumped one tower down on the floor, not caring as it loudly smashed against it.

Naruto sent her a smile and proceeded with telling her about his honeymoon, how the country of Wave still had the best seafood available and how he had missed the ocean and its clean and fresh breeze. So Sakura listened eagerly, wishing her life would be like his, but not letting her jealousy take root within her heart.

From his tales, Sakura deduced that him and _the ever so lovely and angelic _Hinata were the perfect pair that had ever lived on planet Earth.

"Besides, that's not why I came all the way," he said in the end and he grinned even wider. Sakura didn't even have an inkling of an idea then why she deserved that much joy for as she was in the middle of sorting through her dark thoughts and trying to be happy for her friend. "I think, this was intended for you," Naruto said in the end, all while tucking a flimsy piece of paper in her hands and grinning like madman at her.

To her probing eyes, as she was hesitant to open it up for all to see, he only continued to do so, ever so mysterious, yet so excited for some unknown reason. She hated surprises and Naruto knew that quite well after a few of his tricks and blunders he had pulled throughout the years so she _really_ just couldn't understand.

"It came with the wedding congratulations," he explained with the patience of a nursery school teacher, his smile and mirth evident in his voice as he watched her understanding and _finally_ go right-out tomato in the face.

"Oh," she said in surprised exhale, unable to find the right words, her _patched-up, fragile heart_ thumping like mad and her fingers fidgeting as she tried unfolding the flimsy paper. Because it was the letter she had waited over two years for! It was finally here, between her two hands!

Her sudden joy was short-lived, though.

Naruto was flabbergasted, to say the least, to see her curse and then to see Sakura's gentle features run into an ugly scowl as she tore the paper into pieces, _tiny little pieces_ and destroying it entirely, like it had never even been there before, like it hadn't even existed. It was nothing like the overwhelming joy of a woman deeply in love, the kind of joy he counted on seeing upon his delivery.

The confetti landed in Naruto's face, but he didn't even care for it as he watched the woman swear crudely like a sailor in her unstoppable anger and on the border of right-out hysterics.

"Sakura-chan?" He cautiously asked with a blonde eyebrow cocked at the seething woman.

"Be _Patient_," Sakura spat like it was a curse, her voice hitching up an entire octave, her hands trembling and unshed tears shining in her bright, green eyes, her _patched-up, fragile heart_ thumping madly for a different reasons now. "He has the gall to send me a three worded letter of which, one is my own name and the other two are parts of a common phrase. Typical!" She raged on, heaving like a bull readying itself for an attack. "_Be patient_! Two years of silence. And he sends this!"

Because it was nothing like how she imagined. She hoped for sweet words, but expected to see _more promises of someday_ that would help her keep going on with her life all while have her continue on waiting and with the façade she was so careful to never-ever drop, but not this. Not this.

_Sakura,_

_Be patient._

Yet again, it felt like a betrayal. Her _patched-up, fragile heart_ hurt like bitch as if he was _holding it in his hand_ and was squeezing it with full force, wringing the organ out of its emotions and all its hopes and wills and wants. She could see it in front of herself, him with his _cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_ seeking out her owns while he tortured her.

She felt the lump inside her throat and she tried to frantically keep it down before the inevitable sobs would tore up her carefully constructed façade, while trying hard not to imagine _his hand around her throat _too, as if he was the direct cause of the uncomfortable feeling inside of it.

"You're not happy," Naruto took an educated guess, not knowing about the games her mind was pulling on Sakura. His words resulted in her bristling at his very true proclamation.

She wanted to hurt him, Sakura realized, like how that _lost boy from the cursed clan_ was wrecking havoc with her mentality and her heart. She wanted to hurt her dear friend with the only thing she was capable of doing on the verge of breaking down.

With her words.

"If this is how you think a happy woman should look like, I really am sorry for Hinata," was what she chocked out as she stood up and hastily took her leave, one of her hands in front of her mouth, as if that could stop the flow of her tears or the screams of hysteria that were long overdue.

She didn't even care about the strange looks she attracted as she ran through half of the hospital, towards her mentor's office with her loyal cat trailing after her.

Sakura didn't even knock as she threw open the door to Tsunade's office, to which said—quite hangover—woman only looked up, already knowing it was her apprentice that dared to disturb her working hours. No one else dared to do that, anyway.

Sakura thought, if not the whispers accompanying her through the vast corridors of Konoha's hospital, her rumbling, rowing and barely contained chakra could have been the one that had blown her not-so-subtle cover.

"I need sake," was all Sakura declared and looked at her shishou expectantly with red-rimmed eyes shining with unshed tears and her _patched-up, fragile heart _only few seconds from breaking.

"For what?" Tsunade questioned without any real intentions besides her curiosity. It was easy to spot the flush of anger on her pupil's face.

"Uchiha Sasuke," was all she said.

Tsunade nodded, understanding and just _getting_ _it_ without her saying another word, much like in the way her mother wouldn't be able to understand her reasons for reaching for alcohol and a second later Tsunade handed her a bottle from some drawer that was carefully concealed with a particularly strong genjutsu.

After a quick glance it was clear.

Tsunade had given her her strongest batch


	3. Angry Ashamed Afraid

_A/N: Some people wanted Sasuke. Here, I gave Sasuke. Do not hate him - you haven't heard his side of the story (yet). Also, the ninneko's name is Cheetah. Hope you like it and you do not want to throw rocks at me by the end of the chapter._

* * *

**Angry. Ashamed. Afraid.**

* * *

The next mission she received was a long one.

In the end, she did end up regretting that she didn't even visit her parents' to say goodbye at the very least, or that she didn't talk it through with Naruto since what happened in the hospital. She only spoke with Tsunade in those last four days before Kakashi assigned her the mission, and Tsunade did not disappoint.

Her shishou smiled a proud smile and wished her to be strong and fierce, fearless and ready to smash in the assholes' faces. And that, she understood. Even without Sakura needing to tell her what had happened in great detail, Tsunade _still_ understood.

And now, she was out of Konoha for the next two to six months.

Infiltration missions were always handed out only to the very bests. Now, seduction and infiltration crossed fields with even a bit of spying involved and she soon found herself in the role of a concubine in a brothel at the far end of Lightning, where no one even heard of shinobi or suspected her, the_ timid and obedient little girl_.

In reality, Sakura was just bored out of her mind.

She spent most of her time what she really didn't want to spend it with: thinking. This time, she ignored _the lost boy from the cursed clan_, _his cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_, and most of all, she ignored that _he still held her patched-up, fragile heart in his hand_. Or at least, she tried to. And tried so hard and so intently that she might have _even_ managed.

So, Sakura was determined to only think about her mission, willing herself to solely focus on that.

She questioned everyday why Konoha got the request, as it was so far away from the little village hidden by mountains and lush greenery, out of sight and out of way, but she had the sneaking suspicion that the Raikage currently didn't have this kind of manpower at his disposal.

So Kakashi sent her, but with a heavy heart and so many cautioning words, so worried for her, her poor sensei. Even though he was reluctant to send her, he had to bid her goodbye, because there really was no one else for the job. The Hyuuga clan would have skinned Kakashi alive were he to send Hanabi and Moegi was still nowhere as good on the field as the her.

In addition, Sakura was to expect company, and until then, she needed to lay low and act her part, keep her facade in place, the _timid and obedient little girl_. And this detail in the mission scroll rubbed her in the wrong way, in a way that just ended in her being irritated—because she had done the other jobs all by herself and managed just _fine_. Sakura wasn't irresponsible per say, but the situation was already maddening at best, what with strange men eyeing her up like one would a candy bar, always attempting to get a nick of taste of her.

However, it truly was fortunate that she could just use genjutsu on them—and they would be none the wiser. It was of faraway land, where easy bandits were the commoners, maybe the people from the village also came to the secret rooms of the brothel, but they didn't even entertain the thought of them being cheated for the generous sums they paid for her time. They only heard cryptic tales about shinobi and their abilities, so Sakura definitely had the upper-hand there.

She weekly bleached her barely shoulder-length hair blonde—as pink would have been too goddamned easy to recognize and wigs would needed to be properly maintained for it to be not obvious that it was, in fact, a _wig_, and in this case, it just really wasn't an option. The whole procedure was a mess, honestly. Sakura needed to be careful and very aware of everything, lest the other girls found something fishy about her. And during a high-profile mission like this, even one wrong word from another individual could mean death.

That was why Sakura religiously powdered away her byakugou—her proudest mark—and scratches and scars that were scattered on her body, day after day, not even caring how much the paints stained her luxurious clothings. Her 'boss' was always irritated by that, but how could they hurt a _timid and obedient little girl_?

Apparently, without an ounce of regret.

She got bruises on her arms and harsh slaps on her face when she was interrogated about the stains. So Sakura played her part—she stammered nervously, with tears in her huge, green, innocent eyes and trembling in fear in front of the wench that owned this disgusting business.

Those times, she loathed that she was to wait for company before taking up on action, becoming more and more impatient for the promised contacts.

Because she could do it all alone. Maybe even in a day or two at max. If she were to hit even once with not even a few percentage of her true power, the wench would be dead. Immediately, as her organs wouldn't bear the damage Sakura's chakra could cause.

Heck, most shinobi wouldn't survive it either.

Throughout those long days while she had nothing better to do than _think_, her only companion was her loyal cat who pretended to be average, and boy, was she grateful that Cheetah managed to sneak into the brothel without anyone's notice. The haughty cat was a great company when he put his mind into it, laughing at the clients that wanted a night with Sakura, as they dumbly drooled on her floor, under the effect of her potent genjutsu techniques.

When in the middle of May, already one month into the business and unable to do anything beside hunting for information, Sakura formed friendships with the girls, prodding carefully for more about them and getting to know them, building trust and bridges so when the time came, they would cooperate with her. It was no small feat trying to save them from this hell hole without further damage, that was for sure.

Turned out, most of them were kidnapped from their hometowns, mostly from villages from the North, near the ocean, from mostly unknown and defenseless fishing settlements. All of their families were poor, unable to do anything against their daughters' abduction.

Though, one of the girls told her, her parents had sold her to the brothel. They saw a way out of poverty and they took it, to feed other hungry mouths back at home for a little longer. Hitomi, ever since, was still trying to justify her parents' actions just to keep herself together. It was important for her to be perfect in her job, otherwise, she was told, she would be sent back and then her family would surely suffer.

Listening to them, Sakura didn't really have a moment for herself as she chewed through every bit of information while sharing it with Cheetah, planning and puzzling, keeping track of everything. Those nights, Cheetah didn't humor her with scathing responses, his harsh comments were left unsaid.

The girls' situation truly was terrible.

Then, on the thirty-seventh day of her stay, utterly engrossed in her musing, while she was cleaning the common area with some other girls, Sakura was abruptly brought back from her reverie. She even stopped in the middle of the motion, that flabbergasted she was when she _finally_ felt the presence of a chakra signature moving rapidly towards them.

_Chakra!_

That could only mean her company—Sakura decided as she continued mopping up the floor, seemingly unbothered, but hardly able to suppress a smile of victory. She meticulously worked on attuning her chakra with the far-away signature, until the moment she recognized who it belonged to.

Sakura's back prickled and she stopped moving entirely, leaving the mop to fall to the ground.

She faintly heard the one of the other girls, Hitomi, ask her what was wrong, but Sakura found herself unable to answer.

She remembered who that volatile, barely-contained, rippling chakra signature belonged to. After all, how could she forget?

It would have been already too late to suppress what little chakra she let out from her grip, he probably knew exactly where she was as Sasuke obviously had already locked on her trail.

Suddenly, as if feeling the walls closing on on her, she knew: there was no avoiding it now. No avoiding _him_ now. Uchiha Sasuke was her contract for this mission and the help she was to expect when things turned to trouble, and Sakura needed to treat this _issue_ accordingly. With the cold professionalism of a seasoned kunoichi.

And even if she was angry at the man—oh boy, was she tempted to smash his face in, as Tsunade had advised—she did not want him to see her like this.

She did not resemble the Sakura he had left home, waiting and waiting and waiting patiently and fueled by _a single promise of someday_ that _she kept close to her heart_. Sakura wasn't rough and sweaty from training hard and Sakura wasn't brain dead after a surgery, no, Sakura was pampered and polished now, playing a whore.

In other words, Sakura was nothing he remembered and she didn't know if she wanted to show him this new side of her. One judgmental look or one sneer from _the lost boy from the cursed clan_, and she knew _her patched-up, fragile heart_ would immediately give away her sorrow. So panic rose high in her head, making _thinking_ hard and her lips tremble.

And then, when Sasuke arrived, Sakura was pulled by an excited Hitomi, wobbling toward the entrance of the brothel, the old wench that owned the business already harping for the presence of the ladies.

From that, they knew it was a new customer, and Sakura was pulled into the crowd of painted and polished girls, giggling and smiling while the fear of seeing him with her very own eyes threatened to overpower her senses. Her body was giving in to the rumbling tremors of the ferocious chakra in the doorway, always so impatient and always feeling so malicious, the chakra that was making her palm sweat and her entire body tremble.

She felt her limbs go numb. Sakura naturally, felt so out of it, shocked by his very presence so close. She felt like a rag doll that saw things through glassy eyes, but was not able to comprehend anything that was happening around her.

The kunoichi didn't even need to look up as his agitated chakra was intimidating enough for her to forget her hardly-compressed anger toward _the lost boy from the cursed clan_. It was sobering that he still had such an effect over her person, not just over her heart.

Sakura bowed her head hastily as the rules had dictated—the same rules that the old wench made sure were drilled in her brain. She kept her head lowered through the whole small-talk fiasco the old wench pulled off, while knowing perfectly well that _his_ prodding, dark gaze had already zeroed on on her.

And she couldn't stop her hands from fisting, and the panic and the unwillingness squeezing her throat and making breathing hard, because that wasn't how she imagined they would meet again. Not like this—him seeing her incapable and so un-kunoichi, so _different_ from the veteran of the Fourth War and so not like the healer well-known across the Five Great Nations.

The others obviously noticed his lingering gaze too, as the girl beside her, Aya, dreamily sighed, "Oh if only he chose me for tonight, instead…"

At that, Sakura tensed even more, unbearably so, understanding the implication all too well, and definitely not ready to accept what it meant. And she could feel her perfectly orderly nails break her skin and drawing the blood of her palms.

But when she—just for a single minute—willed herself to ignore her inner turmoil and issues over just _seeing_ _him_, she definitely heard the other girls murmur excitedly and smile secret smiles at Uchiha Sasuke and call out for him in an overly familiar manner… then, it was _a_ _given_. Sasuke had visited this brothel, and if the reaction of the girls was any indication, he was here often enough.

So, Sakura, not even giving a thought to the beating she would later naturally get for it, crumpled the expensive fabric of her dress and tainted it with her blood, so red, so imperfect. She held it tight to anchor herself to _something, _and she held onto it like it was her lifeline_,_ before the floor might slip under her feet and she hoped, god, how she hoped that the time went by faster and faster.

Just fast enough that he never again saw her breaking down.

"Which one would you prefer as your companion for tonight, Uchiha-san?" The owner, that fucking wench, asked as if they were bartering on the market, offering him her finest fruit of the harvest. Her tone was honeyed and her hands were expectantly open for the cash that Sasuke already had on display for all to see.

The silence that followed was painful. Tense and pregnant as the other girls waited with bated breath, while all Sakura wished for was the earth to open under her feet or that she were allowed to fight him and drag him through dirt and smash his face in—like Tsunade had advised her to do.

For long moments that seemed everlasting, all she could hear was _her patched-up, fragile heart _beating and beating to a mad rhythm that threatened with a heart attack. Even though she logically, already knew he would choose her.

"The new one would suffice," he said in the end, his dark gaze not leaving her form as he firmly nodded her way.

Now, her dress was on the verge of tearing, that hard Sakura squeezed the material. The floor was steadily slipping away and the luxurious clothing was the only thing that connected her to her harsh reality, she was sure.

To an outsider he must have looked like an eager costumer, gauging up what item he had bought for a price so high, but Sakura knew he was just looking for _his teammate_ under the several layers of clothing and make-up and every other ridiculous jewelry she was required to wear for the outfits. Even if whores, they were high-class whores at least.

She didn't look like a hard-worn kunoichi at all.

So, Sakura, trying to control the havoc that currently overwhelmed her thoughts, did everything from memory rather by conscious decisions. She bowed dutifully like the _timid and obedient little girl_ she played to be, keeping up the facade like it was second-nature to her, while she heard some of the other girls let a little sigh leave their mouths. They were disappointed by his choice—Sakura realized.

She hastily nodded towards the owner, the gesture saying she knew the protocol, so the kunoichi strode backwards towards her bedroom and waited for Sasuke to catch up. Secretly dreading the conversation that was coming—no doubt, given the tense air between the two of them, it wasn't to be too relaxing of a seance—she purposefully slowed her petite steps. Sakura blamed her tight kimono, when in reality, it was her fears that held her back from those agile steps she liked to practice when strolling around Konoha.

Once again, it was those images of him with _his cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_, and _his hand holding her patched-up, fragile heart _that left her clueless as to how to handle the mess that was her life right now. Sakura was also equally as confused as she was angry and afraid and ashamed in front of the man walking behind her. Her instincts screamed at her for she showed her back to him, to a powerful shinobi, and doing so _willingly_.

As a shinobi and as a human being, the back of the neck was one of her weakest points and were Sasuke to strike—like he did that night, so many years ago, _just_ _to shut her up_—her tight dress with those fine fabrics wouldn't let her react fast enough to do anything against it. And that troubled her her mind and worried her heart entirely too much.

It took excruciating minutes to reach her door, that big brown oak door that would, soon, lock the two of them inside. She knew from the amount of money Sasuke had handed over to the wench, he had just bought the entire night with her. There wouldn't be any disturbances tonight.

The kunoichi reluctantly let him inside, and then promptly snapped her door shut. With the ease that only several years of meticulous practice allowed, Sakura slapped a seal on the hardwood, trapping in not just themselves, but the all sounds they made inside of the room.

That made it safe enough for a business conversation.

She sighed and took one last big breath, while willing herself to let the crumpled fabric loose from her grip. Sakura turned towards him, for the first time in two years, lifting her eyes up to his face and studying the changes the time had made on his features.

He still was utterly _beautiful_.

He had filled out nicely, from the awkward growth-spurt that had taken place just after the war. His shoulders were wider, he was taller, so much taller than her now—meaning, she hardly reached up to his shoulders with the top of her head—and those dark clothes paired with his rolling, volatile chakra made him _feel_ mysterious.

His features had sharpened considerably, his hair still as messy as it always was, the spikes now not as prominent as in the past, but the locks that framed his face were let to grow freely, one of them half-way hiding his hypnotizing, lavender-colored Rinnegan.

She gulped as she was not ready to look him right in the eyes as of yet. She still remembered how one glance was enough for him to capture her into some kind of cruel genjutsu—with _his chidori piercing through her body, his hand holding her heart_ and with his c_old smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_ looking down at her, the _scared and useless girl_.

The _possibilities_ were endless.

In the end, it was his voice that shook her out of her reverie, "Sakura…," he said and she was surprised to note how much rougher and deeper his voice sounded than before. He leaned towards her, head bowed with a strange smile of reminiscence curling on his thin lips.

And Sakura had just realized, that were they to battle, how _easy_ would it be for him to win, as his body greatly dwarfed hers.

She was transfixed on his slim and chapped lips, disorientated by that somewhat-smile, but from the corner of her eyes she easily spotted his only remaining arm lifting up as he reached out towards her and Sakura was panicking because _oh god, he intended to attack_.

He was ready to strike her with the _chidori_, this time, for real, and Sakura, even through trembling like dried leaves tended in the the autumn breeze, promptly side-stepped him, cleanly batting his lone hand away before he was able to touch her.

Her widened eyes followed his hand—because that was how Tsunade had taught her _the scared and useless girl_ to never close her eyes when facing the enemy, whatever happened—as he retracted it, noting how his index and middle fingers were pointing towards her.

His arm fell limply by his body as if deflated.

Then, that somewhat-smile disappeared and she was face to face with Sasuke, resigned and tense, the awkwardness spiking up to an entirely new level between the two and Sakura could feel the walls closing in on her. And she realized, this was how she remembered him, with that prim expression that conveyed his cold annoyance to the world and all of its inhabitants.

And that meant, she realized how much Sasuke had changed in those two years of his absence. And Sakura was not ready to find if it were for the _better_ or for the _worse_. Because either and both could have very well been a _possibility_.

So she took one more careful step to get away, from him, his rolling chakra that just somehow got more volatile and from his forest-like scent that seemed to envelop his form entirely.

This time, the silence was even worse than before. It took her minutes before she was sure she could form words without her voice choking up and hitching up an octave at the barest minimum, but once more, _the lost boy from the cursed clan_ outdid her, even conversation-wise.

"It's good to see you, Sakura," Her name rolled of his tongue sensually, not the way like his narrowed eyes and rolling, barely-contained, volatile chakra would have suggested. It was almost _pleasant_ to her ears.

But instead of the flutter or butterflies in her tummy, her anger blossomed to a new level as she remembered. She even forgot the terror that had overwhelmed her mind and her entire body just moments ago, that furious she was.

_Sakura,_

_Be patient_.

Oh, how she _longed_ to just scream right now.

How she wanted to punch him through the walls of her bedroom, like how Tsunade had advised before. _Redemption journey, my ass_, she groused. If he was only rolling in the sheets with a different woman every time, it was _anything, but _a redemption journey. And he still went out of his way to send her a letter to further her hopes. He was still _making her a promise of someday_ while he was tangled up in other women's bedsheets.

And it hurt like a bitch, her _patched-up, fragile heart_ yet again, on the verge of breakage.

Noting the tension in her posture, the way her entire body flexed and how her hands found her luxurious clothing right away, this time, actually tearing into it, Sasuke added quietly, with a steady voice, "I didn't expect to see you here."

It was to alleviate her mood, she recognized his intentions easily, but Sakura wasn't there to just let everything _go_. To let him smoothen their issues out with a few friendly phrases and nice words when all she wanted was to _understand_.

Understand what kind of game he was playing with her heart and head, because it was fast getting _too much_.

And so, Sakura spewed back, "Well, I didn't expect to see you here either," the poison was easily detected in her voice, and still, to anyone not familiar with her, it sounded airy and so sweet that her teeth were in danger of rotting away from her honeyed tone as her lips trembled and thinned into a solid line. "Definitely not as my contact for this mission."

She had seen the way how Sasuke's expression changed at her blatant rejection of his careful, probably meticulously planned and definitely friendly advances, his black eye and the Rinnegan comically widening in the process, and by some sick notion, Sakura felt _delighted_. Satisfied that he had reacted and he paid her enough of attention. He showed emotions and by Sakura's standard, that was no small feat.

That was a first, though. Sakura's volatile nature, though well-known nearly all across the Five Great Nations, was never directed at Sasuke. Never, ever before. And Sasuke knew that just as well as Sakura did.

"Sakura, I..." his breathe hitched while his hand reached out towards her, once again, seeking some kind of leverage he was not quite sure he could reach. When she flinched away in a way that was more human than kunoichi, he immediately stopped with the motion, and Sakura snarled. "I think—"

"Do not do this again," she hissed, her eyes falling on his hand that he slowly lowered once again, his glare prickling her skin with its intensity. Sakura knew he was just as confused, and just as eager to understand her.

Yet, she wasn't ready to give both of them the relief. Her anger didn't let her. Or the fear. Or the shame. Because were she to engage—it wouldn't end well, and somehow, she knew that Sasuke knew that also.

And still, he was willing to risk it all. And that _hurt_.

"Sasuke," She purposefully refused to call him how she had all through her entire life and she knew he had also noticed it as his eyes now narrowed at her with something akin to anger, his eyes glinting at her, yet she refused to look straight into them. His blank expression didn't change otherwise. "I've had enough of your _games_."

She didn't dare say another word, lest she started screaming or _worse_. She didn't know which was the right way of action—every unsaid word left the taste of humiliation on her tongue and made her feel just a bit more pathetic and Sakura was neither where Sasuke wasn't involved. And she refused to be either, even if she was standing in front of her worst nightmare that comically enough, happened to be the greatest desire of _her patched-up, fragile heart_ too.

"We should talk," he proposed, neither declining nor accepting her accusations, not knowing how to handle her absurd animosity, that, to him, was beyond logical.

He had done absolutely _nothing_.

"I don't need it," Sakura exclaimed haughtily, turning towards the adjoining bathroom—her safe heaven of this mission—yet not so courages to actually show her back to him once again. It was nerve-wrecking enough the first time while they were walking towards her room.

"We _have_ to talk," was how he rephrased it as he took a step towards her, while watching her move through the room, and artfully avoid his vicinity, despite his cautious advances. Like they were partaking in a curious tango, wanting to be closer and at the same time, keeping their respectful distance.

Sasuke's hand tingled as he craved even just for one single touch of hers, yet, unable to lift it and reach out for her. He was tempted, but her reaction made her feelings clear, if her words hadn't already.

"No Sasuke," Sakura said with a dangerous tilt to her voice, "_You_ want to talk."

She started fiddling with her obi, annoyed at the tight knot the other girls had made on it. It made even breathing a slightly bit hard, as she was sure her lungs were partly restrained by the several layers of ruined fabrics.

That was the reason for the terrible ache in her chest, she was sure of it.

"And I refuse to talk right now." She noted _the jarring red of the Sharingan_ as it glinted at her maliciously, but she couldn't be more careless now, however still not brave enough to look straight into those infamous eyes. Her fears were buried deep down in her consciences as she was sure they would come alive during her lonely nights, but it wasn't the time to _think_ about _that_. "_Be patient, Sasuke_ ," she hissed back. "We'll speak, _someday_"

She heard his muttered curse, quiet but still powerful enough for her destruction, "_Annoying_ woman."

Not ready to have that particular dagger get twisted once more in her _patched-up, fragile heart_, Sakura promptly turned away and left him standing in her bedroom.

She took an excruciatingly long shower, trying to forget the fact that the one and only Uchiha Sasuke, _the lost boy from the curse clan_, was indeed waiting for her in the other room, probably irritated beyond belief.

It was really ridiculous that after two years of waiting around, that was how they met again.


	4. In the prison of their minds

_A/N: Okay, so Sasuke. He's a complex character I'm still figuring out, so bear with me, it took so long because of him. Also, Cheetah is a joy. (witty kitty). Also, a bit personal: I started Uni this year, first semester, and I don't know quite yet how much I can write during this time. Expect sporadic updates._

* * *

**In the prison of their minds**

* * *

Dejected, Uchiha Sasuke leaned against the vast oak door and exhaled slowly, closing his eyes and trying to block out reality as it seemed as gracious to him as it always was. His thoughts were on an overload, pushing and pulling and tearing him apart as he tried cracking the code of the kunoichi that left him hanging, his lips thinning to a single line in the process.

He ran his hand through his messy locks.

_Why was it so different than before?_

Before, only two years ago, Sakura was ready to go through hell, withstand all the trials of the war and push herself to her limits just to be there, on the same level with him and Naruto. She was there, trying to act as peacemaker between the two of them, and ready to risk herself being blown into tiny pieces by his and Naruto's hands—just like that time back then, when they were twelve, on the top of the hospital, with the chidori in his hand and him, hungry for senseless revenge.

Through all those years that have passed, Sakura really became a kunoichi through and through, the best in her field and the most well-known of all of the ladies. And he was impressed by her, that was no secret, and he was impressed by her even back then, and here and now, too.

So maybe, it was not only Naruto that made this redemption journey worth it in the end.

And after two years of distance and simply just not-knowing and being unsure of the right way, Sasuke could do nothing else, but hang onto those memories of her healing touch, of the languid flow of her warm chakra, healing his nub at the place of his arm and he hanging onto the trust and bonds he believed he had built with her.

But now, they were at cross-roads.

So why couldn't they just manage this, this _whatever_ between them? What had changed? _And why?_

He didn't know the answers. Not even the leads that could result in something resembling an answer at the very least.

Letting his body sink down to the floor, Sasuke looked upwards, as if the ceiling could provide solutions to the problems troubling his mind. All he needed were the answers and after finding those, he was sure he could fix _everything_. He just needed that simple push in the right direction, because he believed it wouldn't take _that much_. He just needed that last, missing piece of that intricate puzzle that impersonated Sakura in his mind and then, they would be _good_.

Or _better_, at the very least.

Because even though, she, occasionally, was irritated by his stubbornness, by his outright defiance and his unwillingness to obey orders of their superiors, Sakura was never _really angry _with him for long.

So though, he had no other wish than fixing this _whatever_ they were both agonizing over the faster the better, he couldn't stop mulling over just what exactly he did that made Sakura angry enough to turn away from him.

Or maybe, this time, she didn't only turn away from him, but instead, _against him_.

She had never done that before.

Sure, she had screamed love confessions for all to witness and she had cried in front of him, openly, never like how a true shinobi should have acted like, never like how it was written in the guidelines and rules that he knew she otherwise lived by religiously.

Now, it was completely new.

She, in fact, shut him out. And it was something new and unexpected, the kind of possibility that even Sasuke couldn't foresee and it made his guts shrink back into themselves and suddenly, he couldn't even feel the rumbles of hunger anymore.

For the first time in his life—free of manipulation, elaborate plots of politics and obligations—Sasuke thought he had control in his single, remaining hand. He might have been alone and a tad bit lonely, but the last Uchiha thought he could be a man of no burdens this time around, but instead, what was reality, Sasuke was clueless how to handle most things, especially the _strongest kunoichi with the healing touch_.

So he spent the last two years fighting against something he always believed none-existent. Destiny sounded like a term only lunatics would use. Yet, here he started believing that he was the _god of destruction, reborn_.

He sullied everything he touched—he had a family, now, it was only in the past. He had a brother who loved him more than he valued his own life, and to this day, Sasuke still felt hollow and sorrowful about Itachi's ending. Then, it was Naruto and Team 7 that he thought he lost for good.

Because how could they forgive for someone like him? Who was Sasuke to them that made them so devoted to his person? What was he to Naruto and Sakura and to Kakashi that they never wanted to abandon him?

But, if they have forgiven him everything, what was stopping Sakura from forgiving him _once more_?

Sasuke just honestly didn't know—couldn't understand either as her actions didn't seem to follow any kind of logic, or maybe, he didn't have enough of a perspective to understand her. Because if he analyzed her they why he knew her best—_the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch_—Sakura's action and speech patterns made no sense. At all.

So as the time went by, and the _silence kept stretching and stretching_ in that tiny room of the brothel, Sasuke could only listen to Sakura probably using up all the warm water and he only had more questions and as of yet, no answers.

The constant thrum of her barely-contained, rolling chakra made his equally as agitated thoughts run wild over the possible scenarios how their great meeting should have gone. Because there was no way that _that was it_.

His lips thinned further.

Were he to believe the myths, Indra was a person made out of the core of darkness and built form emotions that soured a soul. He was a god, that was true, yes, but Indra was also with _a heart that couldn't feel _and _a life that couldn't be saved_. Even if that bitter man had passed just a small percentage of his misery down to him, then Sasuke was done for. He feared that due to his past, due to the entire world he was constantly against and had fought with, he also, was only left with _a heart that couldn't feel_.

Getting it together, figuring that small part out of the tangle that was this entire reincarnation and warrior gods schemes, just this one thing, cost Uchiha Sasuke years away from home. He hadn't been sure—heck, he wasn't sure even now—if he should take those steps towards someone _good_ and even _better _than he had ever known. Toward someone of whom he was undeserving of.

Those steps of his towards her, towards that ultimate _good_, were hesitant and slow, but firm enough to endure the trials of distance. They only seemed to be helpless against the receiver herself.

And Sasuke just simply didn't know if he was doing the right thing, if he had understood her in the right way or if the long time that passed by or the distance between them were so much greater than them and if he had even lost that _possibility of someday_ with her. Or maybe it was that _silence_ of theirs that they have maintained so well that _kept stretching and stretching_, never-ending.

Still, in the end, he wanted to be _better_ for her.

Even though, he was sure he wasn't deserving of her, of her touch that promised of health and promised of future for his miserable self and the first time in his life, Sasuke was sorry. For what he did or did not commit—for the life he had led and the time he had wasted.

She was someone he wanted to try harder for, because she had already given him so much: sanity, hope and a promise of not just the future, but _herself_. He wanted to reach out to her, god knows he wanted, but at the same time, his fears overrode his wants and Sasuke was left with a hesitance that was unfamiliar to him.

Knowing she could slip out from between his fingers at any given moment, however hard he would try to keep her close, keep her in his reach, made him cautious of his actions. Strangely he was more scared from sullying her warmth with his cold touch than about those mistakes he was bound to commit later on.

But still, Sasuke wanted it—wanted it all and there was no doubting or denying it. He might have been selfish, so arrogant and so greedy, but he wanted that _possibility of someday_ for himself and he stubbornly stood by his decision.

He was there.

Simply put, he was there for the future that he had promised to her with that single gesture of love.

He had wanted to greet her in the same way he had said his goodbye two years ago… but the panic in her eyes and the flutter of her chakra made it clear how very unwanted it was.

He just expected a fair warning before he got his hopes up. Though Sasuke didn't blame her for her choice, but still, the truth was that it may have hurt a little, even to the _god of destruction, reborn_, much like in a way when he burnt himself with his own fire that was born out of his own chakra.

Or maybe, it was just his harsh present mixed with the persistent loneliness eating away his bones.

Sasuke couldn't say he didn't expect her to react like that, no, not really. He wasn't bold enough to imagine her with fluttering eyelashes and warm hugs awaiting. He knew she would be hesitant—but that level of hesitancy and unsureness, he couldn't foresee, not even with his eyes that one may dub _all-seeing._

So maybe he was disappointed. Just a tad bit.

But this situation, though it had peaked in awkwardness, was _somewhat_ expected—Sasuke reasoned within himself, because he could do nothing else.

_Besides, months ago, she didn't write him back either._

"Oh, you really _are_ an imbecile, huh?" Came the snobbish drawl from under the bed and for an errant moment Sasuke actually considered the possibility of him having gone insane. But when the owner of the voice showed himself, Sasuke tensed up.

_A ninneko, huh?_

The slight twitch of his mouth was a telling sign how very irritated Sasuke was because of not noticing the presence of another.

"You're an Uchiha cat," was the first thing out of his mouth. It really was more of an statement than any form of conversation starter and the message was obviously received by the cat as it showed him the white of his impossibly sharp teeth before answering Sasuke.

"And you're an asshole," it snapped back as he gracefully perched himself in front of the Uchiha, unafraid and uncaring as his blue eyes gleamed with something akin to ridicule. He obviously enjoyed the former show, because Sasuke had no doubt that, however embarrassing it might be, the cat had seen the whole thing.

He narrowed his eyes in irritation, watching the cat idly licking his paws in front of him, unabashed and provocative, egging the Uchiha on with his utter lack of assessing the situation. He probably had no idea that it would have taken less than a second for Sasuke to snap its neck, ninneko or not.

Though, Sasuke didn't deny the cat's claims.

Instead, from between the tight lock of his teeth, he just forced out, "What are you doing here?"

Meaning, how come the contract between the clan and the ninnekos wasn't valid anymore. Besides the Uchiha, no other clan had managed to secure them as allies—Sasuke had known that well enough, even though only a part of their tribe was still loyal to him.

This one was obviously one of those modernists that held traditions to no high value.

"I was sick, she helped me," the feline, oddly, managed to mimic something like the cat equivalent of shrugging and lazily started grooming his paws, his eyes lit with mischief, his voice so conceited and condescending as he answered to Sasuke. "I figured you won't need our servitude anymore, so I pledged my loyalty to her," and then, as if an afterthought, he added, "She's a nice human."

No wonder some of the cats decided to leave. Sasuke would have neither the time nor the ability to do such deals in his free time like healing them or care for them when in need. And even if he knew it was supposed to be his obligation—as clan head that still had a contract with ninnekos—it was something he conveniently forgot about.

"The others are already in Konoha, I suspect," the cat continued, artfully ignoring his conversation partner, "By the time we arrive back, the kunoichi's apartment would be flooded with kittens, I'm sure."

And it sounded more like a plan already on the move than a lucky guess, but Sasuke didn't care enough to comment.

But it just seemed to be such a whimsical thing to say and Sasuke wasn't someone that was easily led by his nose this time around, his mind on the work at the elaborate way the ninneko decided to let this information slip.

The cat wanted his attention and wanted it now and undivided, because ninnekos never did anything without further motivation, that Sasuke had learned well enough while running around, hunting for paw-prints in his youth.

And seeing the interest in Sasuke's only visible, black eye, the cheeky cat grinned. The ninneko understood it perfectly, aware of the questions that just burned holes in the Uchiha's mind.

"Why are you talking to me?" The Uchiha asked in the only way he knew: he demanded the answer. His brows knotted in confusion as he, once again, studied the cat with those infamous _all-seeing eyes_. It seemed that the cat still reserved the rights to his own mysteries and was not ready to give relief to Sasuke's mind so readily.

The cat looked him in the eyes, with the bluest blue for eyes, unabashed and provocative. And Sasuke wanted to strangle the damn thing—but he hid that particular wish of his well enough and buried his intentions.

"You make a lot of fucking mistakes, Uchiha." After a bit of nerve-wrecking silence, the animal continued with an ill-mannered grin that made Sasuke's heart weigh just a little bit more. "That kunoichi is a good person, better than you ever will be. Should value her before she leaves you." To that, the cat snorted, disapproving and with a mocking tone and with a constantly widening grin, he continued with making Sasuke uncomfortable, as if it was his single and only mission in life. "On the second thought, she cannot leave you. You were never an _item_ per say… More like leaves the thoughts of you behind? Would be a better term to use, I guess."

And those words cut so deep—maybe bone-deep even—that called for that healing touch of hers Sasuke got to experience so rarely, but it didn't stop him from blurting out the only thing that was running wild in his mind while the idea of his _promise of someday_ became further and further away.

"What if I don't want her to do that?"

To that, the cat narrowed its impossibly blue eyes, that so resembled Naruto's that it became slightly eerie. Suddenly, Sasuke was hit with the discovery that those eyes were possibly more of _all-seeing_ than his could ever be considered.

"You should have worried about that two years ago." And that simple, dry statement left a bitter taste on Sasuke's tongue.

He swore he wanted to answer the cat that just managed to trample his considerable pride over with those cruel words—that he wasn't undeserving of, true—but all the shinobi managed was a firm nod and a decision to leave this conversation behind.

Not to forget it—but to think about the truths the ninneko so overly casually threw in his way.

Uchiha Sasuke was only able to place a sealed scroll on Sakura's ornamented bedding before leaving through the window _with_ _head held high up and his heart weighed dow_n.

* * *

It took Sakura close to an hour to get her bearings and collect all the brave cells in her body to finally finish with her ridiculously long shower and open up her door to her current bedroom. At first, she shyly peaked out, then, when finding no pissed off Uchiha there, she boldly threw the damn thing open with a force that the door nearly shut back in her face while the hinges creaked dangerously.

She could easily make out the snickers of her cheeky cat so Sakura asked "Cheetah?" as if just remembering her ninneko was still loitering around.

Cheetah, proudly perched on her bedding, grinned at her in a way that quite frankly made Sakura uneasy as she tiptoed around as if expecting the very dead Uchiha Madara to jump out from under her bed.

Biting her lip, she sat down on her thick blankets and absently reached for her unfathomable cat as he nuzzled her hand as if he were nothing, but average. Sakura would need to be blind to notice the sealed scroll that Cheetah not-so-obviously rolled towards her with his adorable, pink nose and Sakura forced a smile, even though her skin prickled, knowing that Sasuke had left it there.

_He left again, huh?—_and_ her patched-up, fragile heart _thrummed with sorrow_._

That night, poisoned by many unwanted thoughts, Sakura didn't sleep. First, she read the scroll, with hands trembling and lips bitten raw and bloody. _Taka was on this, too_—she murmured to herself, her eyes dried and letters swimming in front of them.

Karin was in one of the other brothels that were too under the influence of the crime ring and Juugo was one of the background worker of a quite popular one up in Lightning's civil capital. It was easy to figure that Suigetsu and Sasuke were to go rounds, keeping everything under tabs and under their control, planning their mission and delivering news between the brothels.

It was stated in the scroll, that twenty-two days from now, she was allowed to take action, assassinate the old wench, get the money from the vault and slit the throats of the providers, no doubt.

In other words, by the end of June, she and the other girls too, were out of this wretched place.

Then, to stop herself from falling asleep, Sakura started planning. It kept her up for an additional few hours until sunrise and then, well into the morning, not even having a hunch that the worst had yet to come.

Because the ache in her heart might have tripled when the girls tackled her next afternoon, eager for details and to compare experiences.

As always, she was obligated to join as she smiled through it all, the torture that made her insides squirm with nausea and her _patched-up, fragile heart_ wail in pain. All Sakura managed was giving short and chipped answers with hazy details to questions that demanded detailed answers and were anything, but appropriate to discuss in public.

"Was it any good? Bet he was really good?! Aya said he might only have one hand, but he knows how to manage that better than most men… Did you know he was a shinobi once? Probably retired because of his injury, don't you think? I mean if the rumors are anything to go by, I would give a up anything for a night with him… That Sasuke-kun!"

_Sasuke…kun?_—Sakura mouthed after one of the many bubbly girls there, shell-shocked and utterly flabbergasted, not even knowing anymore how to react like a _timid and obedient little girl_ she was playing to be. And for the first time, the kunoichi was disgusted by the very same nickname she was so enthusiastic to shout anytime in her youth.

And Sakura became more and more appalled and nauseated as she learned more about her _former teammate_ in a sense that she was sure she would never get to know him. She listened some more and enthusiastically nodded along, trying hard to think about anything, but him spending his jolly time with these girls—_whores_—and willed herself to remember she was, currently, _one of them, too_.

They were just girls that finally found something good in this disgusting business.

So Haruno Sakura, the head medic of Konoha, currently best sparrow on the roll and part of that infamous Team 7, kept listening on with a brilliant smile, the scroll that very same Uchiha had left with her burning up in her pocket, because she was playing to be that _timid and obedient little girl_ while her _patched-up, fragile heart_ broke just a little bit more.

The next few days, well, simply put… felt like _hell_ to Sakura, if the general description of hell was anything to go by. She was disoriented with that promised beating of that old wench only sending her spiraling down to the _prison of her mind_.

The kunoichi might have been bruised, black and blue on her arms, bloodied and weak, like how it was expected from the _timid and obedient little girl_, but she was too deep in thought to even entertain the thoughts of healing those marks and scars and discolorations. The least men that chose her for the nights, the better. She let those ugly marks of her misery remain as long as possible.

On the fortieth day of her stay, there was a storm outside.

And the thunder seemed to shake her room and the lightnings played cruel tricks with her mind as Sakura cried, afraid from the voices and the lights, cradling her head, curled around herself, her eyes unseeing and unblinking with tears spilling down her cheeks.

Sakura swore she could feel the little nips of _chidori _running across her skin, and then _piercing through_ her body, _through her chest_ and his hand _holding her heart_ as if he were there, just a few breaths away from her, ready to attack and ready to kill with _his cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_.

And it got worse—with paranoia eating away at her, knowing that even if she had one of her strongest seals on the room, he was able to leave.

That meant that he was also able to get inside.

And Sakura trembled more violently, thrashed against pillows and cried her eyes dry and there were more nightmares and hallucinations of exhaustion that single night than ever in the last three months put all together and she could only find her sanctuary—not in dreams, never like the ever-repeating nightmares—when Cheetah cuddled her.

Sakura knew that her brave ninneko was not one for affections, but he didn't oppose her. He somehow knew what she had seen against her eyelids, in the darkness and in the thundering storm and that she needed him that one night more than ever before.

On the forty-fifth day, another girl was delivered to the brothel. Her name was Yue, and she was just fifteen. _Fifteen._

That single information shocked Sakura in a way that she was hardly able to restrain herself from slitting the throat of that wench, orders or not. It felt like the other seventeen days couldn't pass fast enough and she found her focus was more on the mission than on the ever-present thought of _the lost boy from the cursed clan_.

But the biggest surprise was, when she caught a whiff of another chakra in her vicinity and Sakura found herself slightly thrown-off, when realizing the idly simmering chakra signature belonged to Yue.

So Sakura prodded around with her chakra, slowly and cautiously working on attuning theirs together, and soon figuring out that Yue must have had some kind of _training_ with it. Then, Sakura settled on the theory that the girl might have been a shinobi once, probably abducted as a genin, possibly during either a mission she was unsuited for or during the war.

That was why Sakura went so far out of her way as to humble herself in front of that old wench—whose death she had already planned out in great detail—to give her permission to tutor the youngling. The kunoichi was more relieved than happy when her wish was granted after long hours of playing nice and innocent and all things she wasn't when ignited by uncontainable rage.

Not even twenty minutes out of that wench's office—where she found a trap door three days ago,—Sakura dragged the little girl into her room with a brilliant smile plastered on her lips and uncaring for the girl's reluctance.

When there, she simply slapped a seal on the door and watched how recognition crawled across Yue's face.

Then Cheetah chose that moment to talk to a stranger for the first time.

"Pretty cool, ain't it?"

And Yue screamed.

Sakura—lightly put—was grateful for her foresight of putting up the seal at that moment, because otherwise, everyone would have hurried over to her bedroom to figure what was going on inside and she definitely didn't want them to have an inkling of an idea who Sakura pretended to be, but most certainly, wasn't.

"You're a kunoichi," Yue accused with her jaws unhinged and warily changing positions as to get away from the cat that kept grinning at the poor thing with a feral glint in his eyes. And Sakura smiled down at the girl.

She was amazed by the naiveté and the innocence of a fifteen-year-old.

"You cannot tell anyone," was the first thing the kunoichi told her, to which the girl only nodded eagerly.

"So your real name isn't Hana, and you're not from some northern village, right?"

Even though Yue asked questions—hard questions and personal question which she fired at a rapid speed—Sakura didn't tell her much. She didn't tell her her real name, the level of experience she had and most certainly not about her role in the war because that alone would have blown the mission.

Instead, she told her not to talk to anyone, not to trust anyone and do anything to keep up the facade. And that, in a few short days, it would end. She didn't tell her the hows, and the answer to those what-if questions the teenager shot her way.

Sakura dint't promise an easy way out and din't promise not to harm anyone, but instead, she reassured Yue, promising the teenager weapons and techniques.

"You would…teach me? Shinobi arts?" Yue's voice was hesitant as if not quite believing what Sakura has just shared with her and she looked ready to break down in tears or hug her at the very least.

"You're a genjutsu type," what was Sakura said with a shrug that nearly convinced even herself of her own carelessness as she sat down by the teenager with the awkward, lanky limbs and undeveloped features that crossed harshly with her otherwise promising beauty. "And I know you have been practicing shinobi arts, Yue, your chakra wouldn't be like that, had you given up already… Simply put, I want to help you."

And then, the girl smiled a true smile that truly reached her eyes and made her blush and she said: "My real name is Natsume, but thanks," and that moment a laugh burst from Sakura's lips.

It was pure relief.


	5. Of teachings and endings

A/N: So... Uni might as well had crush me so far. I hardly had the time to write, but I would rather publish something well-written rarely, than publish something atrocious written in a rush. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

**Of teachings and endings**

* * *

Natsume's training had been going well—not exceptionally good per say, as the girl was unable to throw a shuriken to save her life, but well enough and that was simply a fact. The girl might only be adequate or right out disastrous in nearly every other shinobi art, but her genjutsu skills… Now, those were high-class.

The control she had over her own chakra was on a different level than most shinobi's at _any_ age. Not quite the Tsunade-level yet, but still, Natsume's grip on her life energy was something Naruto would have _killed_ for when he was fifteen. It might have made his life easier. Considerably so.

So Sakura was not afraid from teaching Natsume techniques that counted throughout history either more advanced at best, or forbidden at worst. These were the kind of techniques that weren't exactly Konoha-specific, but were not well-known due to their difficulty. Simply put, less people have seen them and less had the luck to master them (_and even less had survived_).

Occasionally Cheetah also joined in the lessons, giving a helping paw in putting his own weird twists to simple genjutsus and making them even more sharper of a weapon in the gentle hands of the fifteen-year-old. Soon, Natsume's illusion turned out to be on the border of lethal and gruesome enough to make even Sakura's stomach churn.

It took painful, frustratingly long hours and sleepless nights, but overall, a bit over a week to get them there—an achievement, really. Had Sakura not known about prodigies, or how Natsume had an aptitude for genjutsus, she would have started doubting the lanky teenager. This progress was almost unheard of.

Almost, but not impossible.

But Natsume's demeanor, her sweet and genuine concern paired with her naiveté and her real and very much honest childlike outbursts convinced Sakura enough to continue her teachings and do not doubt the girl's success. And not just that—Sakura found herself doing things she never expected to, or things she was sure she would only do for Ino.

Without any form of reluctance, Sakura helped the clumsy girl even when she couldn't do her chores. She taught her how to do the laundry by the stream, she helped her lifting firewood and she showed her how to do her make-up perfectly, because _beauty was a weapon so few had exploited_. And in a cruel world like theirs, having weapons were not only an availability, but rather a necessity.

_It was all for the younger girl's safety_—Sakura found herself chanting such things under her breath while she held Natsume when she was crying her eyes dry on her lap about dark nightmares and possibilities a life in a brothel could lead to.

But Sakura said nothing to lessen her worries. She didn't make empty promises, she didn't tell her about her plans and she most certainly didn't tell her about the date that was rapidly coming closer to end the nightmare they were both living within.

But she was just _there_.

In the end, Sakura realized she not only started trusting in her—Natsume became a responsibility to her. A kind of responsibility that wasn't quite child-like, yet so familiar and so close to it that it made the seasoned kunoichi doubt her decisions.

_Maybe_, she was starting to think by the end of the week, she should just tell the teenager _all_ about her _mission_.

Because after seeing how very scared and reluctant Natsume was to leave her bedroom or Sakura out of her sight, in general… It would have made things easier on the both of them.

Natsume hated to be out in the open, hated how lewd men measured her up and down and how they openly gawked at her body with hungry eyes and drool on their chins, even if Natsume didn't dare say it with words, Sakura knew from her nervously twitching fingers or the way she was afraid to look anyone in the eyes. She was a girl broken in—a girl living in a nightmare.

So Sakura—by now, unconsciously—stepped in front of the poor girl whenever there was a customer to ensure Natsume was never chosen. It was a kind of new habit that happened without her notice and Sakura, playing her part, _the timid and obedient little girl_, managed to do it without the others' notice, too.

Then, one time—specifically on the fifty-fifth day of Sakura's stay—it just… didn't work.

The ugly prick of a man was drunk, crude and demanding, who wanted someone young and untainted for a higher price—to the delight of that old wench, it was _cash_ and it was _a lot_—and the painted and polished Natsume under entirely too many layers of make-up and cocooned in several yukatas was to his linking. He watched the trembling mess of a girl with narrowed eyes that never could focus on the same spot at the very same time.

Sakura was grateful that, at least, he was shitless drunk, the kind of drunk, when if you would tell him to jump in a well, he would do it without further questions and then, say thank you for your great advices.

The kunoichi was calm, but certainly not without worries as she subtly nodded towards the girl to do away, telling her that _she could pull this off_ with that simple gesture that quite comfortably went under the radar of the other girls. Sakura still didn't risk reassuring her with words, lest the wench realized there was something fishy going on.

And it was hard watching them disappear back in the brothel, and it was harder for Sakura to keep a straight face when in reality all she wanted was to bring a gruesome death on that old wench, with those many poisons in her arsenal, hidden between the layers of her clothing, and with her healing touch in a continued circle, because absolutely no one deserved the life of whores.

Haruno Sakura, for the first time in so long, was ready to play God and take that wench's life.

Because whores they might have been for occupations, by threats and by poverty, but they were _still_ humans by being.

Then, when an agonizing seventy-three seconds ticked by and they were left to mind their own business, Sakura sent Cheetah after her pupil with a flick of her wrist that went unnoticed by everyone else.

And next morning, when she slept not a minute in her worries and bit her lips raw and bloody, on the fifty-sixth day of her stay, Natsume found her during breakfast, armed with her proudest smile and wanting to share the news.

She didn't even need Cheetah—Natsume pulled off the genjutsu all alone.

But then, later that day when there were only the two of them with Cheetah in her room, the ninneko confessed to her the secret Natsume had asked him to keep. The secret of how it really happened—not like how Sakura had expected and predicted during her sleepless night, but certainly not like how Natsume had told her.

The poor girl might have managed the illusion well enough, but she was unnerved by the continued presence of the man that slept on her floor. She was afraid of him waking up—so she spent a night wide awake, in terror and poisoned by those _what-if_ scenarios and not able to let go of the ninneko. Or to move. Or to do basically anything else than crying her eyes dry.

So, Sakura, not knowing what to do to save that innocent little girl from _all bad and dangerous_, continued with their lessons, all while working through the boring every days of the brothel, unbothered and uncaring.

Precisely, on her fifty-eight day of stay, Sakura was, once again, standing near the counter, slightly shielding Natsume from the view of lecherous men, when she got one more unexpected guest, whose chakra she didn't immediately pick up on, but had known well.

As after Sasuke's visitation, it was bound to happen soon enough, she rationally knew that or at the very least, suspected it, but the continued passive silence of their other teammates gave way to her doubts.

That was why, on that particular chilly afternoon at the beginning of June, Sakura could say she was surprised to have her eyes met with glinting lilacs that meant no good. She shivered, the hairs standing proud on her arms—_Suigetsu, huh_?

Then, after Suigetsu's insistent questioning about the girls, the wench started her show with parading everyone in front of deadly shinobi. Even if he paid attention, even if he was utterly focused on his task of finding his contact, his eyes flitted over hers as if dismissing her as a possibility.

The guy (the contract killer and reformed criminal, a professional in his field) clearly, did not recognize her—Sakura mused with a speck of pride, because that meant she was simply _that_ good—as he demanded for the newest addition of the brothel. Ever so cocky and arrogant, he shrugged as if it held no meaning to him whom he spent the night with.

Suigetsu was, without doubt, notified by the one Uchiha that that was how he was to get to her, to the contact inside the brothel that he had yet to explore.

So, when Natsume was showed in front of him—somehow, already knowing Suigetsu was not to be toyed with—her lips trembling, knuckles whitening from the way she squeezed her clothes, squirming uneasily in front of the man with the glinting, lilac eyes and deadly sharp teeth, Suigetsu seemed unsure. Doubtful, even.

Then, Sakura let a threatening roll of her otherwise calm chakra out as if a warning sign which Suigetsu took like he had been stung by a needle. He visibly twitched and _somewhat_ politely refused wench's offer of Natsume—_a cherry unplucked and fresh_, she had kept saying.

His humorously narrowed eyes sought hers out within a second and then he, hardly perceptibly, nodded towards her, with recognition burning bright in his irises.

Sakura let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, but did not let her posture slump too much.

_Finally_.

The experienced shinobi clinked his enormous sword to his kunais, as if being restless as he scrutinized Natsume, humming in thought and in displeasure at the unripe fruit he was handed.

And then, he abruptly started a line of complaints—_she's too young_, he said with a grimace, _I would break her into halves_—to which that wrinkled wench only apologized profusely, much like in the manners of an eager nursery student, ready to kiss the footprints' of any of her teachers.

When done with the ridicule, a sudden smile broke through Suigetsu's forlorn expression, purposefully exposing not only the white of his teeth, but the sharp of them too. It was a wild smile that would promise no good in the eyes of the other girls.

And with looking her straight in her eyes, he demanded her for the entire night.

Even Natsume looked concerned as she walked Suigetsu towards the back of the brothel, just after he threw a stash of money on the counter as he walked by it, so carelessly that one would think he owned not just this place, but whole villages up to the mountains.

With someone like Suigetsu, who was constantly amused and always up for the wrong, it was hard to keep the roles in order. With feeling him practically buzzing with unsaid teases and even more mockery—maybe it was the make-up, maybe the clothes or maybe how very un-kunoichi she looked—the route to her room felt endless to Sakura.

But it wasn't tense like it was with Sasuke.

No, this silence with Suigetsu was practically begging to be done with, the kind of buzzing excitement that kept you up on your the toes, balancing on the ball of your feet back and forth. It most certainly wasn't a silence that was the waiting catastrophe looming over your head, and it wasn't the silence before the thunder.

That one, everlasting silence with Sasuke, was a painful, nervous kind of silence that enveloped them while Sakura feared for her life, taking small steps and being uncomfortably aware that she had, willingly and without hesitance, shown the Uchiha one of the weakest points of the human body. And both had known that well.

So, now, Sakura walked with hastened steps, back straight and with a smile curving on her lips, unafraid to show her back and unafraid to show that kind of vulnerability and unafraid to be unguarded with someone like Suigetsu who might have been a missing nin once, but serious injuries he couldn't cause to someone on Sakura's level.

Her good mood continued even when she slapped a seal on her door to keep everything inside.

And it didn't take half of a moment before Suigetsu felt at home and dropped his giant sword inelegantly on the creaky floorboard with a loud bang and then, casually threw himself on her bed too, his ragged and muddy clothes leaving patches of dirt in its wake.

But Sakura didn't mind—if everything, it just made it more of an authentic scene for the wrench to find should she come to explore next day. Impeccable bedding meant beating. And Sakura was held in the brothel to please the customers.

Now, Suigetsu was obviously a customer to leave nothing but trouble in his wake, and it clearly showed.

"So you're the new addition to the team, huh?" Came like it was some kind of a question that was thrown casually in the silence of her room, with familiarity and well-hidden excitement laced into Suigetsu's tenor as he squinted up at the white ceiling and Sakura found herself smiling at the shark-teethed shinobi with something akin to his wildness.

"You didn't know?" Was how she answered as she started getting the heavy layers of layers down from her body, mindful of the poisons and hidden weapons, and with it, freeing her lungs from the press of the obi. "I thought it would be common knowledge within the team by now."

And Suigetsu snorted in amusement. "Sasuke didn't tell me," he confessed with something heavy and breathy in his voice and with a shrug so careless, all while Sakura's heart thrummed in a belated fashion in her ribcage, heavier and crazed even from hearing his _name_. "He likes to keep things for himself, from time to time."

Suigetsu didn't need to look up to note her reaction as the sudden jolt in her chakra was enough of a sign for him to know how very rattled she was. Sakura didn't miss the calculating look the shinobi sent her way, but she chose to simply not react _at all_.

Then, "Though, no wonder," Suigetsu sighed dramatically as he threw his arms up, his ampleness for theatrics showing through the thick of his dastardly disguise. "I wouldn't want to share you either."

And for an errant moment, the floor slipped from under her feet.

Suigetsu didn't even do much more than snort when Sakura slumped down beside him, forceless and bone-tired, "Low blood sugar, huh, Sakura-chan? Forgot your meals again?" And he just waved his hand like his concerns for her were nothing, but annoying flies. "Still a workaholic, I see, no matter if its the hospital or missions," was how he reacted with a half-hearted nudge to her ribs. "Careful or one day, I might start to worry about you."

"You usually amuse yourself with making my life even harder," Sakura said dryly and let her hair loose from the tight up-do she was required to parade around with inside the brothel. "How generous you have become out in the wild, huh?" She shot back, her tongue ever so sharp and Suigetsu smiled with mischief and wrinkled his nose in amusement, familiar with the exchange.

"I'm a new man. Redeemed or reformed, one might say either or both," to which, Sakura only answered with a snort of disbelief, to which he pulled up a whitewashed eyebrow and continued with his own game of amusing himself and being a hazard to society. "What? Having doubts?"

And then, he pulled himself up to sitting position, his shark-like teeth only a few inches away from Sakura, in a distance that might have felt menacing to someone without considerable brute force, but definitely not for this kunoichi.

His mouth opened to whisper, his lips only a breath away from her ear, "I'm just like the love of your life in that sense."

It was only a matter of seconds, because throwing her ornamented hairpin didn't take any longer for a seasoned kunoichi. And she threw it like it was a senbon, with enough force that after it cleanly went through Suigetsu's liquified body, it embedded itself to her floorboard and more than half of the hairpin disappeared from their view.

Then, the man only grinned with those razor-like, shark teeth and hummed in thought, not even bothered by her threatening display of skills or her angrily rolling chakra that should have been enough to make half of Konoha's male population run without a second thought. "Ever so feral, huh, Sakura-chan?"

"Next time, I might actually injure you, so be careful," Sakura warned in a half-hearted way and Suigetsu laughed boisterously, her vindictiveness having no effect on the even more troublesome shinobi overall.

"Only in your dreams, sweetheart," he promised with a bow so low and eloquent the slaves of royals wouldn't be able to mimic it, to which, Sakura rolled her eyes to greatly express her slight annoyance with the shinobi who didn't give a rat's ass about her moods and needs. Theatrics—Suigetsu was good at it

Well, much like back then, when he was in Konoha's dungeons. Even then, Suigetsu forgot to leave his atrocious humor elsewhere whenever Ibiki interrogated him, oftentimes leaving him with barely enough water-supplies. And Tsunade knew of that—and she also knew the nunkenin would be useless without the required hydration.

So Sakura, beside her usual duties as the Fifth's apprentice and high-class medic-nin, found herself with a special permission slip water to the problematic prisoner after her grueling shifts during which sessions she had no patient whatsoever and even less of an intent to be kind to someone so crude like Suigetsu.

As the days turned slowly to months, Sakura found herself quirking her lips to tired smiles whenever Suigetsu cracked a terrible joke, their unlikely friendship ensured and the kunoichi soon found their time well-spent and _almost_ enjoyable.

During those nights, she was, at the very least, spared from the constant nagging and the judging eyes of her mother's while she was still living in her childhood bedroom. When Sakura finally reached the magical age of eighteen, when she was an adult by civil laws—because her controlling mother liked to ignore shinobi laws, in which Sakura counted as an adult ever since leaving the academy—she was out of the house.

A heavy sigh left her lips as she slumped back against the headboard of the giant bed. Thinking and thinking somehow always resulted with her trapping herself in the _prison of her mind_. It had effects on her—and none of them seemed to be good.

The calming presence of Cheetah suddenly appeared out of the blue as he perched himself on her shoulder, the cat ever so unbothered by the new company and started playing with her bleached hair as if the decidedly deadly nin by her side was nothing to be concerned about.

"Got a ninneko?" Suigetsu noted with his eyes just as sharp as his teeth and the devious cat huffed at him. Not quite in annoyance, but in something akin to it, probably only bothered by the silence being broken.

"At least you're not so daft…," was what her cat grumbled back as he nuzzled her neck, and Sakura shivered from the contact, the cat's whiskers tickling her ear. "Seen my siblings anywhere?"

Then, something seemed to click in Suigetsu's head as his impossibly lilac eyes abruptly widened and his usually lax expression hardened in something that, to Sakura, was foreign on his face, "Aren't you from those Uchiha cats?" Was what he asked.

And then, Sakura froze, hearing a question she didn't consider asking formerly and suddenly, she was not sure what to do, or how to react. And she knew as her petting had ceased, Cheetah had also noticed how that little questioned seemed to throw her off in an entirely new way.

Suddenly, this memories of them being Team 7 and on that peculiar mission with the Uchiha cats overwhelmed her and Sakura huffed.

"I'm Cheetah, not some Uchiha cat," came the scathing answer from somewhere under her short hair and Sakura absently picked up with her petting, to which, the ninneko seemed fit to start purring.

"Don't you wanna rather speak about our mission?" The kunoichi asked sharply, her voice on the border of being shrilly and efficiently cutting through the pregnant silence that didn't quite seem to leave and Suigetsu accepted the opportunity without further imploring in the ninneko-issue.

This time, it was him who seemed to take the serious turn, his eyes narrowing in concern, and tiny wrinkles appearing with the action, his careless smile fell and his hands fisted, the knuckles turning white, all of which he seemed quite unaware of.

"There's problem where Juugo is," he said with worry not quite hidden in his voice, but not fully present either, as he dryly repeated harsh facts of their delicate mission, "And Karin is also in deep shit. Sasuke is probably there right now as there are more girls over there. They might need Susanoo to break them all out unscathed. We need to start any time, but likely in a few short hours."

"What happened?" Was what Sakura asked as she studied the reformed nunkenin carefully with eyes a scientist might look at new datas to analyze, unconsciously biting her lip and drawing blood from it.

To that, Suigetsu snorted and found interest in admiring Sakura's dirtied bedding, his fingers absently playing with the edge of the blanket, "Sasuke is sadly quite well-known and even if the reputation of international criminal holds up quite well, someone sniffed out that it didn't happen like in the propaganda story. To put it lightly, it's bad."

"How bad?" Sakura breathed out, already knowing, if, by Suigetsu's measures it was bad, it would be terrific by Ino's measure, not the _humidity-messed-up-my-hair-terrific_, but rather the kind of terrific one might face when despite doing everything, using everything in your arsenal and every method that was available, and even after grueling hours of working and reviving and long surgeries in desperation, a teammate died on you.

Then, Suigetsu's confirmation came and Sakura hugged herself to get the barest sense of protection when he said, "The _it-could-blow-up-in-your-face-in-any-minute_ kind of bad."

"Do we have a place to meet up?"

He nodded, "Kumo, Raikage's office. Two days from now."

Then, as warned, the emergency scroll Sasuke had so eloquently left on her bed when taking his leave, heated in under Sakura's clothes, nearly burning her skin too and as the way Suigetsu froze for a moment, she knew his did the same.

It meant it was starting. Whatever _it_ was.

Then, a sudden grin broke across his face, the one that he flashed for enemies, promising them blood, sweat, tears and then maybe, if they were lucky, an easy death. (_They were never that lucky._)

"Ready to tear this place to smithereens?" Was what he asked and Sakura smiled in answer, even if poisoned by his news, excited to finally wreck some havoc and finish this careful tip-toeing around with this terrible mission, and most of all, finish off that old wench with some cruel medical ninjutsu which—she was sure—was far worse than any torture Suigetsu was able to perform, however creative he might be.

"Any time."

It took half an hour.

That was all.

Sakura sent Suigetsu to get the girls and explain everything in throughout detail—while being straight-down annoyed and not minding their crying at all as he carelessly swung his sword from one direction to another just to silence them—while Sakura dissected the old wench.

Well, it was not quite true.

She, at first, had her going insane by a genjutsu that she reserved only for special occasions. Sakura might not have liked doing it, but it was justifiable by her moral code, just by listing all the shit the old wench had pulled off. That bitch deserved whatever suffering she was put through.

And she suffered. Sakura made sure of that.

The kunoichi injected her former boss with a poison that caused agony and made one's tolerance to pain heighten all while she cut through her flesh with an unsharpened knife. It was a messy job, but a job well done that would have lasted hours longer had it not been for the tremendous blood loss and the wench's old age.

The only thing Sakura felt the slightest remorse for was that she forgot to get rid off the blood that tainted her nail beds and the few specks that dried on her face. It was Suigetsu who pointed those little imperfections out when the others were out of earshot.

The girls, somehow, didn't panic that much when Sakura finally revealed herself. Mostly, they were only glad that they were free and got a part of the money in the vault under the trap door. They didn't even notice her absence from the scenes.

It was only Natsume, who cried in her shoulders as she gave her a fierce hug, when finally getting to know her real name and realizing that she, not only was saved, but they were also out of this disgusting hellhole.

And soon, Lightning's ANBU arrived and coordinated the girls to their former villages, taking them straight to it, during which procedure Natsume didn't let Sakura go, not affected by the sharp look the seasoned shinobi sent her way while they had Sakura report them.

"You have such a beautiful name, Sakura," Natsume murmured in her clothing, her head buried in her neck as she continued to cling to her and softly cried in her shock while Cheetah tried to nuzzle the girl's ankle to get her to relax her bruising hold over Sakura.

It didn't work, but that moment, it didn't really matter either.

"What are we going to do?" Then, after long hours of reports and interrogations, Natsume dared asking, quite eagerly, but her voice not even resembling her usual happy tone.

"You're coming with us to Kumo," Sakura told her, her hand automatically patting the top of her head, surprised that Natsume's hair was still tucked in a tight up-do that somehow withheld all the ruckus of the last few hours. "You said you were from there," and the girl brokenly nodded in her neck, her warm tears tickling Sakura's skin, but the kunoichi was not willing to let her go either.

She found Suigetsu's gaze who did not judge, but continued watching her with curious, prodding eyes. Then, he snorted at her, still presumably annoyed by the task he was given in this mission. With his enormous sword carelessly thrown across his shoulder, Suigetsu nodded towards her. That was the only confirmation needed, and Sakura let her shoulders finally slump.

With her mission ending, Sakura let a relieved sigh escape her lips.


	6. His teammates

_A/N: Sorry for disappearing but it seems my profs like to make their students suffer. Have fun with this, and I really hope you will not be that disappointed with this chapter. As I said before, if Angst is not to your taste, don't even give this a shot. I aspire to kick everyone in the guts with the coming few chapters, so be prepared._

* * *

**His teammates**

* * *

It took some time to get to Kumo, many hours that seemed to stretch longer than what her nerves seemed able to bear. Because Sakura, logically, knew that all those terrible scenarios her mind kept projecting with vivid clarity whenever she blinked, images of _all bad and dangerous and bloodied and dead_, could be nothing more than mere _possibilities_, but that didn't mean she could stop _thinking_ about them.

And not knowing what was happening, was slowly eating her insides away.

They knew nothing of Juugo who was deepest in the whole mission, thus in the most vulnerable position. Or about Karin who had been undercover for over four months by now in the biggest brothel at the West side of Kumo. Or about Sasuke who didn't bother to send them any form of a traditional report, nor through the scrolls they were given and nor through one of his many summons.

Heck, by this point, Sakura wouldn't have minded seeing _Aoda_.

In the end, it was nearly over a day of running, with that impossible deadline of two days, their little company of three people and a ninneko hardly slept. Only two hours each, because they couldn't sacrifice more time—her, Cheetah and Suigetsu needed to be up for night watch and to keep everything in order while they let Natsume dream peacefully.

It was hell—to put it lightly. But from a shinobi's point of view, it should have been nothing. They only needed to switch off their emotions—which, granted was easier said than done—and then, they should have been good.

Or so said the guidelines.

Then, the unforgiving run continued, both through lush and spiked greenery at first, then over a few quite volatile rivers and then, up to the mountains on a rough patch that no civilians would be able to climb.

Even though being extremely careful, Sakura herself received a few scratches from the sharp edges of rocks as she tried to shield Natsume while her back was aching from the the teenager's added weight, who otherwise, would have been unable to keep up, thus she reduced herself into a well-mannered spider monkey.

The only thing that fueled her further was her chakra as the seasoned kunoichi stubbornly circulated around her body—keeping herself warm and her muscles strong and tense, without a sign of weariness.

Now, it was only her eyes that tended to close in every few minutes or so.

When her gaze strayed to Suigetsu, Sakura presumed that the case wasn't better with him either. He arduously rubbed his shoulders with a pronounced grimace, kneading his muscles under the pull of his hefty sword, no wonder.

The waiting was killing them—Sakura felt it in her bones, how they rattled with something quite like worry and she was nervous, unbelievingly so when after hours—heck, after a _whole day_!—there still were no orders from Sasuke. She agonized over the possibilities, thinking about _all bad and dangerous_ _and bloodied and dead_ that was present in a shinobi's life, agonizing over her current teammates' well-being, knowing she _could_ help them, because she had the skill, because she _counted_ and still, she was unable to do so without her being _there_ and able to keep her eyes open and her head clear while _in the prison of her own mind_.

And Sakura knew—it wouldn't be long before trouble finally caught up to them.

Though, when it indeed reached them in the form of porcelain-faced Kumo ANBU with them leaping in their path literally out of the blue—Sakura was sure that they had a chakra specialist that concealed their trait or she was simply _that_ tired—and insisting on Sakura coming with them, because _something_ had happened,_ her patched-up, fragile heart_ thrummed in panic and with restlessness, her head automatically projecting new images of horror to make her worry over those _what-ifs_ and terrible _possibilities_ even more.

To put it simply, Sakura hated how much that simple turn of events imbalanced her. How she was way too afraid for them, for her current teammates than what was appropriate for shinobi of her level, but it was about _Sasuke_ and it was about his other _teammates_, and she could even see the way how Suigetsu's shoulders tensed in worry even more and Sakura was only able to bite in her lip, drawing jarringly red blood with it.

Just as jarringly red as Sasuke's single sharingan eye was.

The worse was that, of course, the damned ANBU couldn't specifically say _what_ happened—oh lord, _that_ would be against the _orders_!—but they expressively asked for her and urged her in a way that was, by no mean, patient or understanding to her and the exhaustion in her mind and bones.

And that gut-churning feeling of not knowing sent chills down her spine and seemed to freeze the blood in her veins—and it didn't matter that she kept religiously circulating her chakra in order to keep herself warm in the harsh winds of Lightning.

So the seasoned kunoichi dropped the sleeping teenager so fast that Natsume hardly had the time to yelp in protest.

Then, a rush even madder than the one before, began.

Sakura was aware of Cheetah following hot in her trail and Suigetsu calling out her name and sharing something relevant, but she honestly didn't have a mindset to even apprehend it, she was too dazed to pay that additional attention to him when she had so much more crucial things to think about.

_Thinking, thinking and thinking_—it would always be her downfall.

Because, _logically_ _thinking_, if it was a kind of trouble Sakura was needed to be there for, then there was probably no chance for the other medic-nins to even _start_ without her. Whatever the task was.

So the head medic of Konoha's hospital and currently the best sparrow in that same village continued on with frying her brain with those _what-if_ scenarios and _possibilities_ while running with a break-neck speed, even leaving those annoyingly militarist ANBU far behind.

And her muscles burned in a way that reminded Sakura of the days while she was Tsunade's apprentice and her legs felt like rubber, bendable and ridiculously weak, able to tear apart in any minute, but the kunoichi simply refused it to slow her down, just by sheer dedication to the cause.

It was starting to get on her nerves that how, after next to two months of not quite lazying around, but still, definitely not training, her muscles disintegrated to nothing.

She just wanted to already be _there_.

So it would have felt much like relief, when _finally_—after a few hours of mad running like she was chased by rabid hellhounds at the very least—Sakura saw the gates to Kumo, if only she hadn't also seen Karin right there, with her impossibly red hair and disheveled attire.

The other kunoichi looked just as pale as Sakura herself, with eyes that, though were dry, were also obviously quite weary with enormous dark circles around them that couldn't be hidden even by her glasses. She urged Sakura to just come a little bit faster in a voice so shrilly and so broken, which was so unlike Karin that Sakura just _knew_ her worries were justified.

There was no time to be glad that, at least, Karin was alive, even if visibly not unscathed.

And in that daze and overpowering absurdity of the situation with Karin gripping her wrist and pulling her from rooftop to rooftop, it seemed it took less than a minute to get to Kumo's hospital.

At first sight, Sakura knew it wasn't as well-equipped as Konoha's, but it was still something to work with, and Sakura hated how she had no time to get rid of the long road's grime, not to mention to do the required sterilizations.

She entirely forwent them as the Kumo nin threw her in a room that was only familiar to her thanks to her memories of a similar one on the third floor of the second building of her own hospital.

Sakura was handed a pair of new, and awkwardly hot pink rubber gloves in the same time when an oversized lab-coat was hastily hurled over her shoulders by a faceless medic. Then, she _finally_ was able to access the situation.

The immobile body on the table soon took all of her attention and it was a stranger, yet so familiar of a body of a bulky man, but Sakura had no time for pleasurable small talk and greetings. Especially with an unconscious fellow—rather, she screamed for the other medics what was needed much like in the manners of a banshee as, when it was about life and death, there really was no time _at all_.

The insisting beeping kept threatening with madness as Sakura grabbed for equipment after equipment while that awkwardly hot pink rubber pair of glows steadily lost its vibrant color and instead, adopted that special hue of red that could only indicate blood.

Jarring red straight from an artery, as the blood flowed endlessly and it seemed unstoppable due to an angry poisoning.

No matter the alley of tricks Sakura had up her sleeves or her precise chakra-scapel that swiftly cut through the flesh or how she drove her hands through guts and grime, even if the sting up in her nose seemed overpowering to her senses, (it was nothing Sakura had not felt before), still, stopping the blood loss took _hours_.

And she, not even having an inkling of an idea who she was operating currently, relied entirely on the hard-earned _experience_ that led her hands through a human and through injuries, and kept those glowed, healing and green-glowing hands stabile all for healing and for a _possibility of a future life_.

So she kept going until the world turned back and she lost her balance.

Later that day, when she her mind quieted from those nerve-wrecking worries and what-if scenarios and she was through fatigue, through three cups of coffees at the very least (_she lost count after the fifth_) and through a refreshing shower and was famished, Sakura realized she had operated on Juugo this afternoon.

And had the blood stopped flowing, or had the poison not forced his body into a shock where his organs were about to fail entirely with keeping him alive and breathing, it would have been nothing to be particularly worried about, speaking strictly from the medical side. Yes, it was an ugly poisoning, but they caught it before the lethal stage, so again, _nothing to worry about and over anymore_.

But the doctors in Kumo simply couldn't stop the bleeding, or extract the poison or cure it and so, Haruno Sakura was required and god, were she anxious and worried for a life she didn't even realize belonged to someone she knew.

And as if being a magician, the Kumo doctors' expectations were of that high from the apprentice of the Slug Princess.

Her precise chakra control sure came in handy—Sakura lamented while sipping the coffee, plain and black and tasting like emptiness and still, somehow calming, because of its familiarity in the bitterness on her tongue. She hated the stuff anyway. But it helped her with keeping her eyes open so it was okay.

And after grueling hours spent in the labor, she was able to neutralize the poison.

While the specialists in Kumo claimed it the whole cause was impossible, and Juugo was, simply put, impossible to save from his fate and keep alive—Sakura even managed to solve future problems with neutralizing the poison, finding an alexipharic to counter it. Though had it not been for Karin's help with the calculations when Sakura couldn't even distinguish _numbers_ from _letters_…

She didn't know what could have happened if it weren't for Karin. She was quite adept at everything Sakura was currently not so.

Then, the insistent chirping of her pager broke her out of her reverie and the flow of her thoughts and with it, made the walls around her mind crumble. Juugo, if not awake, but at least was finally breathing without support—or so the pager claimed.

After a walk that seemed everlasting, Sakura was surprised to see that there were others in Juugo's room, and she was glad to see an aloof Suigetsu leaning against the wall and a bone-tired Karin sitting hunched in a chair with a smile so soft and gentle one wouldn't even notice it, if that one hadn't known her at all.

And, when looking to the side, Sakura felt the wind getting literally knocked out of her lungs. Because she rationally knew it from the beginning that he would appear sooner or later, but the physical appearance of Uchiha Sasuke still shocked her in a way that made her entire world collapse around her and the floor threaten to disappear from under her feet.

And after their last meeting, it was no wonder how _her patched-up, fragile heart_ churned in her ribcage and how her thoughts went on a wild ride, not knowing what to say, how to react and most of all, how to approach him.

Because he was looking forlornly out of the window and had he had both of his hands, Sakura was sure he would have crossed them long before. Sasuke was obviously and without a doubt angry, or the very least, _annoyed_.

And she didn't have the slightest idea why he was so. (_Because he had absolutely no reason to be annoyed with her, beside, well, shutting him out of her bathroom close to a month ago._)

The most surprising thing out of all surprising things that this mission came with, was that he didn't greet her with words, nor did he greet her with an imploring gaze or with a hand reaching out towards her or for her—maybe ready to attack, maybe with_ the chirping of chidori_ and just maybe, with _his cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes, _ready to pierce_ his hand through her ribcage _and ready to tear her heart out_, holding it in his hand_.

Rather, all he reacted to her presence was a sharp look shot in her way—with the Rinnegan and _the jarring red of the Sharingan _present, though making her freeze in her spot, but without the genjutsu that haunted her well into adulthood.

_That_ was how he acknowledged her after saving the life of one of _their_ teammates.

And she would have said it hurt her—Sakura thought—but her fatigue seemed to overpower everything and anything, even if it was Uchiha Sasuke glaring holes in her.

Or overpower Uchiha Sasuke, in general.

So Sakura just hung onto her mug filled to the brim with her lukewarm coffee number somewhere between eight and thirteen, but probably her fifteenth as she turned towards Suigetsu. He studied her with curious interest in those lilac irises and with his eyes narrowed, and Sakura's legs trembled from the effort of simply standing through his analysis, through his heavy gaze as the funny tingling present in her muscles was the harsh reminder of the extortion of running _until Kumo_.

"Where's Natsume?" was the first question out of her mouth in the frozen silence of the sterile hospital room, and yes, it was her first question to the group of people even if that group of people indeed involved Uchiha Sasuke.

The same Uchiha Sasuke who was standing beside the window with militaristic discipline and with so much coldness that she, not so subtly, started to shiver and the very same Uchiha Sasuke to whom she didn't even have the energy to get angry with. Or speak with. Or just simply look at him anymore.

Then, out of the blue Cheetah rubbed against her ankle, abruptly putting stop to her _thinking_ and getting _in-prisoned by her own mind_, and he behaved like he was providing support she didn't know she needed or wanted, and understanding.

And from that alone, Sakura knew it was trouble of a new kind that had nothing to do with Uchiha Sasuke and their inability to communicate through this _whatever_ that they kept getting more and more tangled in. Like strings were bound to them, ending in the other, those tight-worn strings that never seemed to rip and just kept getting into more elaborate knots.

But when, to her questioning look, even Suigetsu uncharacteristically looked the other way with an expression akin to guilty and refusing to even look her way, not to mention at her, it became obvious to Sakura that she was better off not knowing what transpired.

Yet, she ached for the answers, somewhere deep already knowing, but hoping against them.

Then, his words were more destroying than anything could have been, even the out-of-body experience of these two last days or the continued _chirping of the chidori_ constant in her ears and the insistent beeping of the machines that currently held Juugo together and alive.

"I'm sorry Sakura," he said it quietly and the mug slipped from the tight lock of Sakura's fingers. Or maybe, it was the sudden spike in her chakra and her monstrous strength—she didn't know. Couldn't know. Didn't want to know.

She only felt the lukewarm coffee drip-drip-drop from her fingers, the cuts of the ceramic instantly healing and her eyes staring into nothingness.

"Natsume was our problem, wasn't she?" Was a question she was unwilling to ask, but to which, she somehow and somewhere deep in her mind, already knew the answer to well enough and it was hard to watch her current _teammates_ go slack, and watch Sasuke brace himself with his shoulder tensing. "A leak?"

And Sakura knew it was a confrontation that was coming and from which she cannot escape so she sighed heavily.

She would think later—she determined.

When she didn't have to save _lives_ and didn't have to travel with Team Taka or when she could have a long shower in the cellar of Kumo's hospital when she couldn't be overheard or she had _a single minute_ to breath, but she would definitely not think right now, because it would destroy her.

"I've not seen her room," was what Suigetsu said, getting ahead of Sasuke, and Sakura was grateful for him butting in between them. And Sakura could do nothing but biting her lip as she looked at anywhere but at her current _teammates_, knowing Juugo got hurt because of Natsume's information. "But the ANBU had found letters there. They said she wrote in a code that is common in the South," and when he saw her hands shake as she gripped the fabric of her white lab coat—for lack of better things as her mug was already shattered on the floor, he stopped for a second. "You were also in danger, Sakura. According to them, you were the next in line."

And Sakura didn't want to believe him, but she knew it was a cruel world filled with _all bad an dangerous_ _and bloodied and dead_ and so much worse had been done to her, so she buried his words in the deepest drawers of her mind and nodded to him with resignation, determined to not show it all on her face.

But from the wince he shot her way she knew she did her facade worse than she had hoped.

Then, she stepped around them, hastily looking for something to occupy her shaky hands with, as if that would stop the experienced shinobi folk from noticing them. Heck, she was sure even Karin noticed, even though she had yet to look up from her lap, scratching outlandish nail polish from her nails that was everything, but befitting of a kunoichi.

"I won't say sorry for wanting to save and help her," Sakura said in cold contemplation in the end, after long minutes of the maddening beeping of machines, checking those that ended in Juugo, all while artfully avoiding everyone's vicinity, but Sasuke's the most who's chakra spiked considerably in the wake of her words.

Heck, Sakura was half-way sure she could hear _the chirping of the chidori_ and feel the little nicks of electricity on her skin, like, already. "I'm not sorry for that," she shrugged and tried to ignore the man who was about to blow up.

And Sasuke was not one to burst out in rants or engage in a screaming matches, he was always controlled and calculated, he was cold hearted with a hot head so he rather just icily shared his disappointment with the world that somehow hurt more than if he had screamed bloody murder at her.

Maybe, that was why it hit so close to _her patched-up, fragile heart_ when he _finally_ spoke.

"You didn't only endanger that mission with that girl, you endangered the life of a teammate Sakura and that's only what beginners do," he determined with a certainty of a god of some kind and for a moment Sakura was tempted to shove it all back to his face, because the audacity of that man was getting on her nerves.

What _he_ cared about _teammates_ a few years ago? What he cared about _anyone's precious life_ when he was on a warpath, at the mercy of Uchiha Madara, manipulated and humiliated by his ancestor?

And were Sakura to be a lesser person, she would have, oh god, how she would have let her anger loose, but instead she only checked the infusion with meticulous precision, biting her tongue and hiding tears and not giving in to the painful tightening in her chest.

Then, her hands disappeared in her lab coat, when she felt ready to answer, after long minutes while she mulled over the _possibilities_ how a truthful answer can further damage them and decided, she didn't care anymore.

She was tired of caring.

"I thought I was doing the right thing," she proclaimed with a tired voice that was firm, but gentle enough to disappear in the silence of the biting sterility of the blindingly white hospital room and the way his legendary, _all-seeing_ eyes narrowed, Sakura knew he didn't exactly believe her.

He knew she grew close to Natsume—probably, Suigetsu had told him all about it—and when seeing that blaming glare of his, Sakura suddenly was painfully aware that he didn't only doubt her skillset and professionalism, he was also doubting her as a person.

In other words: he didn't only not believe her, he also didn't believe _in_ her.

"It's not a good enough reason to explain your actions," was his cruel answer with calculated level-headedness and the kunoichi was sure, would he have two arms, he would have crossed them already, but right now, the only real sign of his cold anger was clenched jaw and his lips thinning.

And suddenly, that simple sentence let _something_ snap in Sakura that she couldn't exactly recognize, because it was a part of her she hated. A vile one that wanted to hurt and wanted to destroy and was simply so _cruel._

So Sakura smiled her sweetest smile at him as she, for the first time, looked him straight in the eyes in for so long, "Oh?" And her voice sounded right-out playful, but in reality, was _anything but. _"But it was a good enough reason to want to murder all of us, right Sasuke?"

And Sakura knew it was a low blow to spew back his own words at him, to spew back the words a seventeen-year-old Uchiha Sasuke brokenly uttered during his trial which was something that was definitely not publicized, but she could only hurt him in the only way she knew how to hurt Uchiha Sasuke back, and she knew it was wrong, and she was _sorry_, but it was already too late for that.

It was too late for a simple sorry. For the both of them.

After painful moments of nerve-wrecking silence, it was hard to watch him go pale, but it was even harder to watch Karin finally rise from her chair with resignation only to put a gentle and supporting hand on his shoulder and Sakura lost the ability to properly breathe for a few short second.

_Her patched-up, fragile_ heart thumped painfully, watching that delicate scene with remorse and with a tight knot in her throat and even if she didn't want it, it etched in her brain with terrifying clarity that would be back to haunt her during the coming nights.

She was answering to an attack with an attack, and she knew it was wrong so she instead fled the hospital, unable to face the mistakes she had made.

Maybe, those teammates she had called _theirs_, maybe, just maybe, they were rather just _his._


	7. First step

_A/N: When I say writing this was brutal, I mean it. This is my fave and longest chapter so far. And if you do not combust my mailbox with comments and with ideas, I will seriously reconsider my attempt at writing this story. It's not easy writing something so complex and yet so dear to my heart. Also, after this chapter I have nothing pre-written. Sorry about that._

* * *

**First step**

* * *

Confined in a single-roomed flat that could be called anything, but definitely not big enough for housing a ninneko and four additional people of which all of them were shinobi, restless and a tad bit emotionally too damaged was anything, but relaxing to Sakura's nerves who craved dreamless sleep over _anything_.

In fact, it was an experience she wasn't looking forward to _ever_ repeating.

The need to do anything else than look each other in the eyes, knowing everyone was blaming themselves, or at least, someone else for the torture Juugo went through and still hadn't recovered from, and yet, not wanting to be too selfish enough to take the only room with a bed in it, was something that slowly, but steadily started eating them away from the insides.

Actually, it rubbed the four of them in a bad, almost agonizing way. The air was stiff and from the slight twitching of their hands, Sakura could see how their muscles ached, each and every one of theirs, but she—and Team Taka too—resisted the temptation of a good night's sleep, even though everyone sported equally as big of bags under their eyes as the medic did.

So no one took the bed.

Well, beside Cheetah, that was.

Instead, all four of them resided in the kitchen, awkwardly balancing on small chairs that might have been appropriately sized for children, but definitely not designed for adults, sitting around a wooden, well-worn table that hadn't seen cleaning supplies in a while, trying to not rub elbows on the surface of it, but really, who were they to complain?

It was definitely better than sleeping under the stars.

Kumo was always famous for its harsh winds—it didn't matter if it was summer or winter, the wind was unresting up in the mountains and oftentimes it made camping in the wildness so much more ruthless. Shinobi were often forced to use earth-based jutsus because tents couldn't withstand the winds, even if one was residing inside said tents.

Maybe, that was why Team Taka and Sakura were given the flat, out of the way, but definitely not out of sight, maybe two short streets from the hospital, so it was quite perfect were an emergency to occur with Juugo—and it was like a fresh breath of air to Sakura, when she, under the specific orders of the Raikage, was allowed to at least go as far as the hospital. Even if it was just for hiding purposes.

The others were not so lucky—confined in that sorry little flat, only able to leave between midnight and four in the morning so as to not cause a panic attack within the villages as most residents had seen pictures of Team Taka after they had tried kidnapping Bee.

Even though the Raikage should have not had any control over the actions of a citizen of Konoha, not to mention the shinobi of Konoha. They only should have obeyed to their Hokage—and no one else.

After many years of rivalry and countless disputes and after an allied battle against Uchiha Madara himself, there still was no love lost between some villages. So Team Taka and Sakura all involved, were under constant supervision of blank-faced Kumo ANBU who not-quite-subtly, but definitely vigilantly continued to observe their team of mixed nins of all origins from above.

The distinct tip-taps of shinobi walking on their rooftops went ignored, but still noticed and Sakura let out a tired breath of disappointment.

Like it was an unspoken agreement between them, they didn't answer with actions to the direct provocation, lest the conflict between villages arose once again, because to this day and probably in the future too, _peace did not mean trust too_, and all shinobi were taught to be alert and aware all the time, so that was what they chose to do. And Sakura was keen on committing another mistake.

But still, with Karin in Team Taka, their attempt was laughable at best, pathetic at worst.

However, that didn't make the situation less maddening to any of them. Because they did solve a mission that Kumo had been toeing around for years now, and was unable to handle.

And their squad did it under five months.

And all they received was mistrust, when they deserved acknowledgement and _so much more,_ and they got a sorry little flat when they would have got so much better as an elite team and Sakura got to slave hours in a hospital where, though her presence was appreciated, her being a Konoha shinobi less so.

She was from Konoha—from the village whose nunkenin had tried kidnapping Bee. And that distinction was just on the border of being simply _enough_ for her to be going around freely in the hospital and even Sakura was ready to object to the discrimination had she the energy to do so. So instead of actually partaking in saving lives, she resigned herself in Juugo's room whenever she was in the hospital, avoiding Kumo's medics with the very same talent she diligently avoided her problems.

It didn't matter that Team 7 had saved everyone, every sorry citizen and unimportant shinobi of no relevance during the war. Uchiha Sasuke had tried kidnapping Bee—and she was from the same village as Sasuke, and they were once teammates.

That was enough of a stigma.

So just maybe, the cause of that tight ball in her stomach was indeed caused by the constant presence of those poisonous prejudices of people who knew nothing, but propaganda and just maybe, that acidic ache in _her patched-up, fragile heart _wasn't caused by the presence of Uchiha Sasuke either.

Or by his blatant disapproval of her. Or by his mistrust. Or by his malicious chakra that threatened with ill-intentions. Or the nerve-wrecking tension between the two of them that bordered on being painful what with it _stretching_ in the overwhelming nervous silence of the kitchen, and _stretching_ it did until close to _snapping_.

And as the time passed and the tension _stretched_ with every minute ticking by, that very same ball within her stomach somehow kept expanding and by now, after long hours of sitting in relative silence (and yet, somehow still hearing _the chirping of the chidori_ inside her head), it made even _thinking_ about eating solid food unimaginable.

Or maybe, that feeling she was already acquainted with, was guilt and just maybe, she hadn't the force to withstand it. No, she was sure of it! It was the guilt eating away inside of her, rotting away her guts and making her queasy, feeling disgusted by her naiveté and being nothing more than a failure, her good reputation ablaze and slowly disintegrating from existence.

By the time they were back to Konoha, she would be a professional no more. Trusting someone unworthy was a grave mistake no one could allow themselves to make, not even an academy student. Even if it was for saving a life that she deemed innocent.

(_Haruno Sakura shouldn't have played God._)

And that thought, accompanied by the feeling of slowly destroying herself from the inside with those _never-stopping thoughts_ was what might have made it hard to sit around motionless that barely big enough dining table, the farthest from Uchiha Sasuke, but still there and unable to entirely avoid him.

And the tension kept _stretching and stretching,_ and it was getting unbearable_—_Sakura decided with an imperceptible sigh that was more of a simple exhale for unprofessional ears.

And so the thought came: alcohol. It would be easier. Easier to properly mourn Natsume, easier to forget, easier to stop her thoughts from overflowing, and just maybe, get the annoying_ chirping of the chidori_ out of her ears for a short few hours before she started hallucinating from the insomnia.

It was enough (_already too much) _to see Sasuke in her nightmares, _holding her heart in his hand_, looking down at her with a _cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_ and locked _in the prison of her own mind_, Sakura knew that she would think it _real_ and the trust that was barely even there formerly, would most definitely shatter between them.

Even after so many sorrowful nights spent in loneliness and sober, Sakura still felt her fingers twitch for alcohol, once again, but instead, went for the second best thing this time too: caffein. She slowly sipped it, the bitter taste of humiliation on her tongue charring her senses and making her eyes teary.

_She was on a mission_—the medic repeated like a mantra. And though tempted, she forwent alcohol.

All while h_er patched-up, fragile heart_ dully thumped in her chest, aching with something acidic, a new kind of pain that wasn't familiar to her as of yet; all while yearning for control, that precious control that might have been able to root her to her morals and to clarity that she hasn't experienced since leaving Konoha.

In the end, that ache remained with the lack of that desired control and she was able to do nothing against it.

On the second thought, that ache that resided within _her patched-up, fragile heart_ was maybe humiliation. _Logically thinking_, it could have been that. Or maybe alike that final pinch of salt that spoiled meals for anyone's taste, the pinch that destroyed hard work and all efforts. The pinch of salt that ruined elegant serving of an expensive meal. That very same pinch of salt that ruined her.

Soured her from the inside and preserved _her fucked up feelings_ long enough that she would suffer for months, grieve for years for someone that might have been deserving of her sympathy, but not of her help.

It was hard to believe in herself anymore, or to trust her gut-feelings or her general judgement of people, of a situation of _anything_ really, because even when she thought she could finally trust someone, she had made a mistake with trusting one that wasn't worthy of it.

Her hold tightened on the cup in her hands.

Breaking it would have been only a clear give-away of the turbulence within her mind, the clear signs of her distress and doubts that poisoned her from the insides and kept her _in the prison of her own mind, _but Tsunade had taught her right, and to be a true shinobi, _conceal and don't feel_ when on a mission, to be a _kunoichi,_ strong and fearless, in every sense of the word.

And with the knowledge that she had already been criticized by the team captain, by Uchiha Sasuke himself, openly stating she was being unprofessional and not ready for a job of this caliber due to personal feelings and her opinions, Sakura kept herself stiff and above surface, before the flood of her thoughts could have overpowered her.

But it didn't stop her from being annoyed. Didn't stop her from _thinking_. Thinking about Natsume, about _all bad and dangerous and bloodied and dead_, about the future that had yet to unfurl itself for the lanky teenager of _fifteen years_ and about the _possibilities_ that held her a _prisoner to her own mind_.

Because he, Sasuke, behaved as if shinobi were not encouraged to think fast and achieve whatever was needed, even sometimes out of line and out of the good of their hearts, or maybe, out of compassion, as if they were not encouraged to _save lives_ and with that, save _themselves_ and make their terrible jobs easier on them. To make their conscience lighter, even by a little bit.

So, even though the resistant silence that _kept stretching and stretching_, Sakura stubbornly fixated her gaze on the mug in her hand, refusing to yield to Sasuke.

And now, at three in the morning, sitting stiff with and blank faces around that small, wooden table, willing her breathing to be controlled and stable and listening to _her patched-up, fragile heart_ beat with grief and her throat remaining tight all throughout the night, Sakura stayed silent, looking straight ahead, unyielding.

Even though the tiredness had made her worse for wear in a way that made her anxious, when even _thinking_ was hard—or next to impossible—so Sakura, unable to sleep or do anything else, instead, listened to Suigetsu, as he unforgiving and unbothered, slurped noodles on her right—much like how Naruto did every time they were at Ichiraku's.

She was fairly sure he did it to make the suffocating silence simmer in the chilly night of Kumo and Sakura drank her trusty coffee in that ever so frustrating muteness, while Karin on her left sat with her shoulders slumped and looked anywhere, but at the other inhabitants of the room, unable to bear with the silence that _kept stretching and stretching_ endlessly, until on the verge of snapping.

And even if Sakura had refused to look at Sasuke's direction, not to mention at him throughout the whole day—throughout the last three days, actually—she was aware of him. Painfully so. Because how could she not be?

She was aware of his overwhelming presence, of his bad mood and cold expressions, that passive muteness and ignorance and of that malicious, volatile chakra that worked its charm with making each and every of them right out sick.

Of course he was angry. Why wouldn't he be? After what she had done.

They sat in the very same room day after day, but the both of them kept turning away and shut themselves up and it was hard to do so, and Sakura even showed her back to him, so humiliated and yet so defiant she felt. Because he had wounded her enough ever since they have met again—what else could he do now?

Nevertheless her stubbornness, the constant noise in her ears, _the chirping of the chidori_, reminded her _what else_ he could do to her, were he bored by wounding her with his words. And those nightmares just kept coming so Sakura, when not feeling up to be defiant and fierce, slept in the hospital. Or didn't. She didn't need to sleep as it was more than enough to only close her eyes to lock hers with _his cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_ as _he held her heart in his hand._

_Night terrors_. They never left her be.

So maybe, in the end, it was better that no words were exchanged. Just estranged looks when the other was definitely not looking and brief exhales of breaths around each other.

And so, Sakura reserved herself to be just as passive as Sasuke, just as long as she was back to Konoha, when she can have a few drink with Ino—well, maybe not with Ino, but maybe with Naruto, Sai and Kakashi, or with Tsunade… definitely with Tsunade—and she can let it all out under her bedding or under her shower, but _definitely_ not now. And she wanted to take another sip from that old mug full of coffee, but it was already empty and she sighed again.

To that simple exhale of breath, everything seemed to freeze and even though, Sasuke—especially Uchiha Sasuke, _the lost boy from the cursed clan_—didn't move from his position, kept passively starring off to the distance.

And from the way how Karin constantly was sporting goosebumps always and anytime and Suigetsu's slurping was getting louder, annoyingly so, Sakura knew the both of them could feel it too.

But it was only Karin who actually _did_ react.

She slapped the table top with an expression so different than she have sported throughout the last few days, so fierce and fiery all while Suigetsu's noodle cup was jumping on the wooden surface, the liquid splashing around and Sakura's empty cup rattled in a way cheap ceramic tended to do when on the verge of breaking.

"I've had enough of your shit," was what Karin spewed, but it sounded in fact, more like a shout inside that restricting flat. "Go outside and talk it through you two!" And her words would have been enough, but Karin wasn't afraid of making sure that the two of them, indeed, would leave the flat.

So before long, Sakura felt herself getting dragged outside and she didn't protest, too flabbergasted to tear her hand away as just like Sasuke, who, even though didn't need Karin to show him outside, was also reluctant to leave the confinement of that flat.

The harsh winds welcomed them outside.

And then, the fiery Uzumaki locked the door in front of them, knowing if they really wanted to come in, they _would come in anyway_, but it was a clear sign that they were unwelcome inside.

The chilly air, once again, seemed stiff and Sakura shivered, unable to look to her side, at _the lost boy from the cursed clan_, enveloped in his thick cape, and unabashedly unbothered by the cruelty of the weather.

Then, as if out of the blue, Sasuke started speaking, his voice so rough that she was sure he had not spoken since they came back from the hospital. "Follow me," he whispered and without any fight, Sakura did so.

And it was hard to keep her expression blank as they jumped over rooftops and on a mountain as he gave out commands instead of suggestions, like a true leader and a man still on a mission, "This way."

And Sakura obeyed, because what else could she do, and it was hard to do so without wanting to avoid him, with fighting the urge to bolt and run and leave him, unable to face the situation she was in, but at the very least, this time, it was't her who showed him her back because this moment and this night, under the stars and the shining moonlight, she didn't feel as defiant as before this day.

Maybe, that was why, at the very least, she could calm her nerves enough not to immediately lose her cool and her thoughts be organized, and be able to keep her head clear before he started actually speaking _again_ and messing with her _mind_ and _heart_ once _again_.

When they arrived at the mountaintop, the night was not so dark anymore, there was mist and the wind was strong in the promised dawn that blew her bleached her in a way that was more messy than alluring and Sakura needed chakra in her feet to keep herself standing upright.

The waiting was hard. And it was such an excruciating wait for Sakura, not knowing what to expect what to wait for, but ready to flea if the need arose.

She would not open for him, she decided, not wanting to make it any easier for him. If he wanted to solve it, this issue, this _whatever_ that _kept stretching and stretching_, bur _never quite ending_ between the two of them and messing with her _head and her patched-up, fragile heart_, he would have to initiate it.

So Sakura kept quiet, looking at the dewy grass and standing still and stabile like a rock would against harsh winds that could have polished her and slowly cracked her _carefully constructed facade_, but that didn't mean she would give up herself or her determinations. Because Sakura was at the point where she just didn't want to outright speak to him.

Years ago, Sakura, the very same Haruno Sakura, that _scared and useless girl_, would have sold a kidney to have a proper conversation with Uchiha Sasuke, the heartthrob of the class, the ultimate rookie of their year—now, it wasn't the case.

All because she had already waited _enough. _She waited two years for a promise that might not be kept, a _promise of someday_ that _she held close to her patched-up, fragile heart, _once again only waiting for him to take those steps towards her, because Sakura was tired from taking all those steps since they were twelve.

Now, she refused to do so and make all those mistakes once again.

Because were he to _not_ take those steps now to meet her half-way, she knew something would end within her, that _patched-up,_ _fragile heart of hers_ would collapse and fall and break to tiny little pieces and shards and the tightness in her throat might snap and oh god, her mind. Her mind would be in fractures.

And she was sure she didn't want that, but what she knew even more firmly was that it was _enough of_ _waiting_.

And in the not-quite-night-but-not-yet-dawn of the mountaintop, in an unloved, harsh and misshapen shinobi village like Kumo, it took long moments for Sasuke to decide. But soon—minutes filled by that stiff and suffocating silence that _kept stretching and stretching and finally snapping_—Sasuke, _the lost boy from he cursed clan_, started to speak.

"You did somethings stupid," he said and Sakura felt like she was standing in front of her mother, Mebuki's judging eyes telling of thunders and disappointment and the kunoichi shivered in the harsh wind as his blaming Rinnegan was not much better either. "That could have been avoided."

And Sasuke would have continued as he did not expect answers just yet. But his Rinnegan opened up wider when he heard her speak, voice tough and words snappy. So impatient and so eager to get this whole _thing_ done with and show it behind them.

"Juugo is saved," was what she chose to answer, stubbornly not willing to accept that Natsume was a mistake, with the need of taking care of her, of wanting to feel something familiar that could be close to empathy during her time in the brothel. "But I am ready to take responsibility for my actions," and she didn't need to say that she was sorry because the way her arms locked around herself, hugging her torso to get a chance at protection was sign enough.

Or maybe it was just the harsh wind. Sakura didn't know.

And then, Sasuke was in front of her, with the speed of lightning, his chakra wild and uncontainable, so _volatile_ and overpowering it cracked the earth under his feet. And Sakura flinched away, scared by the sudden movements in the darkness of the early morning and her _patched-up, fragile heart_ fluttering like the wings of a scared butterfly would.

He wanted her to yield. And she hated him for it.

She might have said unforgivable things, making his exterior colder and making the love lost between them bury itself even deeper and Sakura was not even a part of his team and it was getting _worse and worse, never better_ and she could feel their chakra rumble together, in an unscripted symphony and hers be just as _volatile_ as his in reaction to his bad mood.

Hers _wasn't warm_ anymore, wasn't like that _healing touch_ she prided herself for. She refused to yield just yet.

Their chakras were not quite in tune—hadn't been in tune ever since he had left the village—but they were equally as eager to destroy, threatening to tear down the mountains and rocks around them and it was overwhelming, unnerving and also might have been a tad bit too agitating to the both of them, too.

"What are you doing?" She grasped out with a voice that was so shy and broken, maybe vulnerable even, or scared, but definitely an octave higher than her normal speaking voice was. She felt the seal of byakugou _crack_ on her forehead, her chakra wanting to break free from her delicate control to answer his call and her head felt _heavy_ when trying to contain it, when trying to avoid that scenario. When trying not to yield.

Sakura looked up, her gaze settled at the place just between his eyes to avoid his analyzing stare that was trying to pry into her very soul. "Sasuke, just…!"

And it was clearly fear in her eyes she was unable to mask in front of him, this time, it felt impossible, and Sasuke stood back for a breath, and their curios tango seemed to evolve as the respected distance between them minimized and Sakura heaved a breath, trembling and not quite knowing why, gaining back the control of her own chakra, the control she craved all throughout her life whenever Sasuke was involved.

And she didn't yield.

Even if Sasuke was clearly angry and Sakura was ashamed. Ashamed of his effect on her, and so afraid, afraid of losing the control and yielding everything to him, and yet, so eager to peer back into his very soul, her curiosity insatiable.

But Uchiha Sasuke, _the lost boy from the cursed clan,_ had an armor so thick Sakura was unable to read him—not like she ever could, anyway. He kept himself closed off and mysterious to everyone, not willing to show his true colors to anyone anymore and that was something even time wasn't able to change.

It was maybe those nightmares, his name brokenly falling from her lips while _he held her heart in his hand_, entrancing her into a genjutsu of her dead with _his cold smirk and deadly, deadly eyes_ or maybe it is his overwhelming power that he radiated or the chakra that still felt mysterious and malicious and Sakura just didn't understand.

But she was not ready to ask when knowing his answers could imbalance her in a way that may result in stumbling and falling and in an ending which she didn't know whether she was ready for.

And then, his lone hand was suddenly on her wrist, and her first reaction was to tug it away, controlled by fear and sheer panic, and she just wanted to be rid off of his warm touch that she was not sure what it truly _promised_. She wanted to get free, like how she was not free from him, her mind and body entrapped under his new genjutsu.

Then, the image of Karin's touch on his shoulder flashed in her mind, the image of Sasuke paled to the whiteness of the sterile hospital room, with Karin standing still beside him like a rock he didn't deserve to have, but the rock he had at that moment. And that single thing, that single thought made her snap back to her reality, tearing her away from the _prison of her own mind_, saving her from the chaos that reigned there.

But he had done it. Taken the _first step towards her_. And that was what was really important.

And all Sakura was able to do was watching him with widened eyes, thinking about screaming, and thinking about wrecking havoc and using her powers as a kunoichi as he might have forgotten what she was, but then, he finally spoke up with a gentle tone that might have even been able to calm that instant thrumming of worry in her chest and quiet the nervous flutter of _her patched-up, fragile heart._

And Sakura hated how much effect he still had over her, over her body and over her mind and she aspired to hate him for it, to hate him for all, but found herself unable to do so.

"I won't hurt you," and his long fingers squeezed around her wrist as if it would assure her but Sakura knew it would only take a second for him to twist it and broke it in a way that was beyond repair, even when armed with _her proudest mark, the byakugou_.

Her eyes found the _jarring red of the Sharingan_, and she was afraid, but enthralled, therefore physically unable to look away, and she felt her footing weaken. Or maybe, it was the mountaintop in itself that started crumbling under their weight.

Sakura didn't know. But she gnawed on her lip,_ thinking and thinking and thinking _while the silence _kept stretching and stretching_, but still, she forced herself to stand still on the crumbling mountaintop in the dawn with _her head held high and her heart weighed down, _with feeling_ her proudest mark _cracking on her forehead, losing control and on the verge of yielding to him_._

And for emphasis, seeing the way she trembled in the harsh wind, Sasuke repeated his words in a way that couldn't be blown away, not even by the harsh wind, forceful and so sure, like it would take the anger of several gods to tear his claims to pieces and Sakura wasn't even sure if it was not, in fact, a dream anymore, "I'm not going to hurt you, ever. You're safe with me."

There was simply no hope for her to understand the reasons behind his actions. The reason why he had willingly chosen to take_ that single step_, that on the long run, might have been negligible, but so important at the present.

That was why, maybe Sakura tried so insistently with gulping down the ever-growing ball in her throat, thinking about the _possibilities_, about the new promise he had just made to her and not ready to believe, because she had trusted him once, and she had trusted Natsume and she _always_ misplaced her trust.

She hadn't the power to trust him once more.

"I trust you," Sasuke said and his words were destroying something in Sakura, either her mind or her heart so she shook violently in his tight hold, trying to keep herself together in the gentle silence that _kept stretching and stretching._

Sakura did not wait until Sasuke's aristocratic features become only blobs of colors, she looked away from _the jarring red of the Sharingan_ with a shaky exhale of breath. She was not ready to trust—not him, not anyone new right now. She was afraid of trusting, afraid of giving away that hard-earned control she prided herself with. She was not ready to hand over that power to Uchiha Sasuke,_ the lost boy from the cursed clan_.

She didn't yield. Wouldn't. Couldn't.

She had given away many powers to him already, too many, that allowed him to toy with _her patched-up, fragile heart, and with her mind_, but she was not ready to trust him—and oh god, how she wanted to be ready for that, how she wanted to smooth over their _issues_, the _never-ending whatever between them _now, that he had taken the _first excruciating step_ towards her—but it was simply too much to offer him the ultimate _control_ over her person.

Before she knew what she wanted, before _thinking, thinking and thinkin_g overwhelmed her to no return, she tore away her hand from his tight hold that seemed even tighter than before and ran. Ran from her problems, from the tricks her mind was pulling on her, from all those unsaid words and trust-issue, and from the guilt and the weight of her mistakes, but most of all, Sakura ran away from Uchiha Sasuke, _the lost boy from the cursed clan._

And suddenly, that _first step_ he had taken, didn't matter anymore.


	8. Control

**Control**

* * *

The first time, it was kind of expected. Her rejection, that was. Or more like, he had deep down, somehow already knew it would happen, her rejecting his advances and turning away. _(But not against him.)_

The second time though? It really felt like a harsh slap from reality. Burning and bruising, a kind of slap that stung on his skin and left an angry, red mark to be reminded of his mistakes whenever he looked in the mirror.

And it was kind of funny too, Sasuke mused with a tortured expression and with a bitter taste on his tongue.

Ironically, just when he _finally_ felt ready to open up to her, to _the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch_, it was long overdue. She didn't want it now, and probably she wouldn't want it days after or maybe, the most scary _possibility_ out of all of the other possibilities running wild in his head, that she would not want it ever again, either.

The crushing thought froze the blood within Sasuke's veins.

After years, long years of trying to get ready, better and be someone that worth it and worth her time, _worthy of her_ feelings and her love, with the _promise of the future_ on his tongue and seeking answers and discovering an entirely new world that he wanted to show _her_, she had rejected him.

_She had rejected him_. Sakura had rejected him.

She turned away.

And she had torn away her hand in a panicked way from his, from _Sasuke's, from the lost boy's from the cursed clan_ that honestly hurt the Uchiha on a level he believed wasn't _possible_. And yet, he had let her go, even though knowing that the way she was running, in that frantic, break-neck speed was anything, but right. It could have easily damaged her muscles, damaged her body and tear her apart from the insides where she to make a wrong move.

All because in an errant moment, he had seen horrors reflecting in her jade eyes, of _all bad and dangerous and bloodied and dead. _So he let her go. He let her_ run._

And that alone was enough to make him halt all his motions and not to go after her. Not to break out in the same speed, not to chase her farther away, less she ran faster or she never returned to him, for him, for that very same _promise of someday_ that kept him on his feet in the last two years.

And the pain that tucked itself tightly in his chest felt like a poison spreading through his body, slowly crawling through his system, numbing his limbs and numbing his brain and even making him heave breaths, so heavy and so dull, full of weight and pains. And it simply felt so much _worse_ than the harsh wind blowing on the mountaintop, scraping on his skin, tearing in his hair and pulling his cloak in every way, but all in all, it still felt so much _better_ than the fear in his chest, of her never coming back to him, for him. Because, all things counted, that was also a _possibility_. Her, escaping from him, from his hold, from his presence and from the thought of him.

Him, never seeing her.

This, in the end, hurt in a way that was new, but yet, so familiar to him somehow, because when he was left alone, with the memory of his dead family in that impersonal, empty apartment, so lonely and so utterly helpless at age eight, now it was similar to that feeling. The fear of her never returning and the fear of ultimately and permanently loosing her was overwhelming.

He felt lost and helpless, so utterly so, he didn't have even an inkling of an idea what route he should choose to turn towards to, what things he can reach out for, as solution and how to figure her out, _the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch,_ to _finally_ reach her, to catch her and to take her in, but he, most of all, was afraid beyond beliefs.

And yet, even though all those poisonous thoughts wrecking havoc in his head, Sasuke had forced himself to keep his face blank and god, how he forced himself to not run after her when seeing her legs buckle and when seeing her landing on a tree top that just screamed _pain_, all for not fucking this up even more, him, the _god of destruction, reborn._

The vision of her figurine getting smaller in his vision as she hopped down to the path of trees, running and running anywhere, but mostly away from him, stayed with him and burned in his memory for what he felt like was eternity itself.

It must have been how she had felt so long ago—when he left her, on that bench, so many years ago, or that other time, when he left her on the battlefield, near dead bodies, trapped in a genjutsu, showing her _all bad and dangerous and bloodied and dead_ through visions that broke so much more inside her than just her spirit.

In the hindsight, that might have been a bad idea.

Sasuke let out a particularly heavy breath that the harsh wind carried away, as if it would be able to lift all of his problems from his shoulders, making breathing easy and _his heart weigh a little less_. His problems dancing away in the wind, blown away and never returning.

That didn't happen.

Because it was nothing but only the wind. Not some magical spell or godforsaken deity, just the wind itself that somehow still managed to tear into him, causing injuries more than bone-deep. What with its harshness, those _injuries_ could have as well been _soul-deep_. Might have been the kind, even her _healing touch_ couldn't relief.

_'But it was a good enough reason to want to murder all of us, right Sasuke?_'

It echoed inside the confines of his head, like a record stuck or like a memory he could never unsee, going on and on and without break, never passing up a second to thrust a dagger through his chest. Her eyes tearing up, broken ceramics at her feet and her hands trembling just as her lips, holding it in and not letting her sorrows go.

They had already lost so much. Just because they thought they were doing _the right thing_, believing they were on the right path, on the paths of their choosing, even if Sasuke had formerly chosen warpath, she chose a path that was of healing ways and warmth, so much warmth and good, and the _better_.

Still, it was undeniably true that he was unfair with her, they way he had handled the situation not befitting of neither a captain nor a teammate, nor a friend, if he could be called that, but still… her words, those words he wasn't undeserving of, hurt him in a whole new level, in a whole new dimension he hadn't believed anyone was capable of trumping him so cruelly and so effectively.

_'But it was a good enough reason to want to murder all of us, right Sasuke?_

He needed days to work through it after just that, had he managed to think about Sakura. Really think.

It may have been a mistake to unleash his perfect hold and call our for her chakra, but it was entirely too interesting of an experience how he could, at certain times, tune in his chakra with hers. That desire, to make her lose control, to make her let go, show herself to him, might have been a selfish and cruel desire of his, but he wanted it, he wished for it and was eager to see a side of her that he hadn't seen before. The kunoichi, who wasn't made form all the better, from warmth and form healing only. The kunoichi who was ready to take what she deserved, to _take back_ after she had given so much.

He was eager to experience her, all of her. Now it was easy to see: Sakura was not who he had left in Konoha's gate two years ago. She was a different woman now. She still was _the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch_, but beside that, he lost her that time. He had lost her so many times already.

He wasn't willing to do so once more.

It was entirely too enticing to feel her chakra going insane, with his in toe. It felt like a drug to him, feeling each other so _raw_ and so _powerful_. Their chakra involuntarily springing into a dance that tantalized with fire so vicious, so deadly and so black, burning up and wasting away anything in its wake, had her control allowed. Had control slipped from her hold.

Sasuke could think only one word that described the interaction: e_ffortless_—how they combined to destroy and damage. And even after long minutes standing at the hilltop, his back to the mist of barely-dawn, taking calming breaths, his own chakra was still reluctant to settle from that crazy ride that made his heart throb with more intensity and his breathing quicken.

It didn't take much 'till he noticed how Sakura's chakra was warm, really warm—the total opposite of his that was everything _but_. Her warmth spurred his volatile chakra into action in a way he hadn't yet experienced with anyone before and he shivered at the thought. Her life essence ruffling his and calling out to his rationality, to his force and to his _better_.

Sakura's energy was clean, pure even, compared to his entire darkness, he had inherited from the _god of destruction_. Even when on the verge of an outbreak, on the verge of rampage and destroying, hers kept clean and pure and still, simply so _warm_.

But still, it wasn't warm in the way Naruto's were, exuberant always almost bursting with joy and fierce and everything that was exclusively _Naruto_, instead, hers was tranquil and gentle, ready to mend wounds that reached deeper than bones. And words weren't enough to express how grateful he was to _the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch._

But when he approached hers with his, her chakra had changed. Entirely.

Were they to lose control, the hold on their chakra, on their emotions and on the confrontation that kept getting delayed, the different routes of _possibilities_ how it would occur were just endless cases of mysteries and the upcoming results from it were just as impossible to count as the number of starts up in the heavens.

He didn't know why he forced it after her initial reaction. Didn't know why he desired to vex her so desperately, to get to feel her, unclothed, _raw_ and volatile and why he was so ready, so eager to take her in entirely.

Maybe, that very moment, that seemed like the only route possible how he could _reach her_. Rationality didn't work. Reasons didn't work. Talking didn't work. And now, he needed to note that bonds didn't work either.

Had they let control go, they would have unleashed something tragic. And though tempted, they weren't ready for the consequences. They needed to stop. And Sasuke knew it was the good decision—_the best decision_, in fact—,but still he was unable to deny how exhilarating it felt to toe around the line and nearly tip the scale off of their balanced tango.

He wanted more. He wanted to experience it—_her, the strongest kunoichi with healing touch_—_again, once more,_ _always and forever_. His greed seemed insatiable, though he wasn't ready to give in quite yet. Uchiha Sasuke, somehow, already knew, it would only take some patience and a lot of instance. But he wanted it. Wanted her, raw and unclothed.

_Patience_. All it took was _patience_.

(Sakura,

_Be patient.)_

With a deep sigh _the lost boy from the cursed clan_ turned around and decided he could do nothing else right now. Not bothered by the presence of several ANBUs hot in his trail, ever so curious and ever so annoying, he only kept going with _his head held high and his heart weighed down, _back to his teammates whose chakra already thrummed with curiosity, even through the distance, it didn't take a lot to pick up on that.

So it really was no surprise that Karin waited on him, and now with the door opened it looked quite inviting, but the red haired fury standing there not so much. She was a fright—her chakra oozed with irritation and agitation and Sasuke knew even if she wasn't able to eavesdrop, her tracking ability was more than enough to know what had transpired. Or what he tried to make happen.

"Sakura?" Was the first thing out of his mouth as he stepped inside the awkwardly small apartment, the suffocating little place with a narrow aisle where Karin bristled and harrumphed much in a way of an enraged harpy.

"If you weren't our leader, I wouldn't answer," she muttered, hoping he wouldn't catch it, but at the same time, no, not really. She wanted to rub her ire in his face and with her antics it wasn't something of an impossible mission. "Sakura went back to the hospital, flanked by those ANBU gals," she shared even though her eyes fired the question to Sasuke which he had expected to first hear aloud the moment he had approached the threshold.

_What the fuck did you do?_

So in his defense, he remained mute, refusing to look in the direction of the hospital where now he could feel the ruffled chakra of the medic that somehow, though irate, still remained warm to his gentle prodding. He was tempted to prod further but one look from Karin was enough to halt his ministration.

But her, simply by being there, was enough of an evidence to Sasuke of her loyalty, of her persistence, her being inside Juugo's room and doing everything that was or maybe, wasn't even within the _possibilities _of medicinal ninjutsu.

But he didn't say anything, in fact, refused to say anything and only nodded at Karin in a reluctant way to show his thanks.

However, his tactics didn't work—no wonder as Karin was still livid, frustrated beyond beliefs even if she had nothing to do with the situation—or the _mess_—Sasuke had created with _the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch. _It had managed to put its strain on their team dynamics, making them vulnerable as the tension between him and Sakura that had managed to grow ever since their encounter in the hospital. It was easy to _feel_ even for a half-witted, not to mention for tracker with refined abilities, to pick up on the traces of their…_whatever_ that was happening between them. On top of the situation being delicate and the outcomes quite erratic at best, they were residing in an unfamiliar place.

Because even if Kumo was an ally of Konoha, it was the farthest place from being safe or a sanctuary.

So, in the end, it still was kind of ironic that Karin was standing in the door, watching him with the thundering eyes of tigress, not even bothering with concealing her frustration with him, and yet, still contemplating whether to let him inside, while with all of her body language that she was so careful about during her mission in the brothel, seemed to scream only one thing at his way: _Fix it!_

And it took a very aloof Suigetsu popping up form the direction of the kitchen, now having an enormous glass of water at hand, to break Karin's concentration with bringing apocalypse over Sasuke's head just by the help of her expressive eyes.

Not that his contribution to the mute exchange of wills was any help to anyone as he had off-handedly blurted out, "Man, you had fucked up big time."

And there really was no fight in Sasuke to protest as, after he got through both of his teammates, slumped down in one of the battered chairs around the kitchen table, with his head bowed, muscles tensed to their limits and his single hand twitching for kunais for a spar at the very least, but preferably for a kind of fistfight that he was only able to perform with Naruto. Where he needn't worry for the other party. Where he needn't hold back.

He craved it. Heck, he was barely able to function with the his control loosening over his chakra. That volatile mess of black energy was ready to burst out after the dance with Sakura's. It was unresting, unyielding and far too eager to reside back in within his core. And even one slip of motion would have been enough to tip the balanced scale and result in a frenzied destruction of anything within his radius, Sasuke knew it well.

So instead, Sasuke willed himself to remain put and took calming breaths.

They felt useless.

"_Really_ fucked up," as always, Suigetsu wasn't satisfied with the effect over him, so by the laws of nature, he must have had to emphasize his thoughts to get it across Sasuke's thick skull. Or it was the reformed nunkenin's primitive, ever-present need to annoy everyone in his vicinity.

However, that didn't justify him butting in in his agony.

If Sasuke was someone else, he might have said something along the lines of '_you don't say_', but it was Sasuke, so he only let a minuscule amount of killing intent sweep through the air as a warning of its own, effectively thickening it, to which Karin shuddered and Suigetsu backed away to the corner, not ready to risk his neck for a tasteless joke.

It should have felt like triumph, having his comrades finally settle and not butt in his life, but instead it settled heavy on his tongue with a foul taste and Sasuke suddenly only wanted a bed to lie in. He needed to think—he needed time to figure her out, needed time to put together the giant puzzle that was Haruno Sakura.

Because anytime he felt like he was getting it—getting her, _the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch_, he always needed to realize how very _wrong_ he actually was, and the puzzle he had assembled from the flutter of her eyelash and the way she spoke her words, ever so gently and ever so careful, he always found that puzzle messed up and by the end of their time spent together, he always needed to start anew, from the beginning.

This time, when they chakras clashed, was the first time when he felt her _real_. When he could reach out to her, grasp for her for a few brief moments and enjoy the feeling of them meeting half-way.

He wanted it _again, once more, always and forever_. His greed really was insatiable.

"What happened?" Now Karin dared asking, not as furious as when he stepped inside the flat, but rather quiet, as if understanding, it wasn't only Sakura that was agitated. With that whiff of killing intent, Sasuke was sure he had let loose part of the misery that currently ruled in his head and over his thoughts.

No wonder she could understand so readily—Karin was exceptional in sensing, be that chakra or emotions or anything else, really, she simply _got it_.

And he told her with a frown, even though he never intended to talk about it, "I don't know." And it was a confession that was hard to say, but it was out of his mouth before he could have even thought it through. "She got…scared? I got… eager?" Was the best expression how he could describe with the least words the emotional turmoil Sakura was forced to go through in his presence.

However, even though she was curious enough and so ready to give a helping hand with the situation, the only addition Karin was able to provide was a frown similar to Sasuke's, that suggested she was not quite believing, but neither was she outright opposing his statement. Because Sakura? Scared? Sasuke? Eager?

It seemed whimsical, if not outright impossible.

"What happened to Natsume?" Came the voice that Sasuke honestly had waited upon when he arrived back in the flat without Sakura. That damned ninneko most probably had a death wish. Or he was simply interested in turning his life upside down yet again and spewing wisdom on the mangy kitchen counter.

He was just surprised the fur ball had managed to keep quiet until now.

Somehow he just knew the damned cat itched to introduce himself to their team. And the irritating little thing didn't wait on their reactions, he leapt up on the table. The cat, impossibly so, looked now forlorn, never like how Sasuke got to know the fur ball only a month prior. The playfulness seemed lost on the cat as he looked more like a ninja companion this time than a kitty eager for irritating the heck out of him.

When no answer came, the cat seemed to snort and curled his white tail around himself, his impossibly blue eyes narrowing in the process. "I ask once more. What happened to Natsume?"

And that was when the impact of his speech sank in, as Karin looked more surprised than anything, but maybe a bit embarrassed as she must have thought it was an ordinarily house cat that resided in the flat even before them occupying it. Suigetsu didn't seem to be fazed by this particular thing of the cat speaking, even if he froze in his sitting position—Sasuke noted and sighed.

"Suigetsu," he warned as he looked at the former contract killer, waiting for the answer from the only member of his squad who had not only personally seen the little girl, but whose care the girl was left in. "You heard the cat." And he swore he could hear the hiss from the animal but he was _so_ done with caring about hurting those around him.

What did a mangy cat count, anyway?

"Assassinated," was what Suigetsu blurted out, his lilic eyes turned to the side, refusing to look either at his squad leader nor at the cat that had his prodding gaze fixed right on him. "Raikage's orders." And it was painfully clear, that expression of guilt on his face, yet so unfamiliar on his features to many of the inhabitants of the room. "I needed to do it."

And somehow, from that alone, Sasuke knew, Suigetsu would have let the girl run, even if she was the leak, just because even though they were shinobi, they weren't monsters. And that girl was only fifteen.

_Fifteen_. Like _him_ when he chose warpath and fulfilled his wishes of revenge against his brother.

What in the world would she know about anything, the grand schemes around and involving her? What could she possibly have done against the whole fiasco? And how would she have been able to resist? Resist the temptation of freedom, or anything that was offered to her in exchange for her services.

Suigetsu would have let the girl run. Sasuke, on the other hand, would not have done the same.

"Orders?" The Uchiha questioned once more just to be sure, but the way how Suigetsu fisted his hands on the top of the table, showing whitening knuckles, his answer was clear.

"Yes," how Suigetsu confirmed even when they didn't need confirmation, with a sigh that sounded more of a final breath of an elder as he slumped down in his chair, looking up at Sasuke with remorse and had the situation entailed something else entirely, he would have already apologized in his own, nonchalant way.

The cat narrowed his eyes the same time Sasuke did his.

"You are not to obey the orders of foreign Kages, Suigetsu, just with exceptional permission from Kakashi," was what Sasuke said in his usual tone of coolness not quite hidden in his voice, while his thoughts were running wild, trying to understand the mess that would befall them were Sakura to know that piece of information.

What the fuck did the Raikage think? ANBU were there to do the dirty biddings—and yet, Suigetsu was ordered to do the assassination.

Even if unintentional, his chakra leaked. Simply put, the situation—the other _mess_—they have managed to get in the middle of was so intricate Sasuke was sure that the only thing he would be able to do was _damage control_. That was no questions were the issue was headed. And with being honorary Konoha shinobi, mistake wasn't allowed on their side of the deal and Sasuke knew that, even if he had influence with the current Hokage, if he fucked up this time, he couldn't do anything what he wished for doing.

_Tread carefully_—Kakashi had warned him many times in his letters. And yet, Sasuke always just shrugged it off, thinking they were doing their duties exceptionally.

And so, his words seemed to flip something in Suigetsu as he threw his hands in the air, now not even caring about his voice volume and totally not caring about how it shook and slid up nearly by an octave. "Well, try fucking doing anything when you have twenty ANBUs waiting on you!" And he took a shaky breath, locking his eyes with his Rinnegan and the other black one, defiant and ever so fierce, unafraid and ready for the fight were Sasuke to challenge him. "I could have got away from a squad alone. Maybe with the girl, too. Or injure those damned idiots to win some time or whatever… but I was _greatly_ outnumbered. I didn't know where you were. Your hawk reached me hours after the assassination. I couldn't do…anything else than obey."

And it was the helplessness in his voice that chilled Sasuke's blood from that boiling temperature, only because of the familiarity with the feeling. He had remembered being helpless. Being forced to do things. Being unable to do what he wanted—Sakura, _the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch_, who seemed to have forget the basis of her special abilities, did a good job of reminding him of that, maybe, this time, causing wounds that were deeper than bones. And just maybe, _deeper_ than his _soul_.

_"But it was a good enough reason to want to murder all of us, right Sasuke?"_

And then, unexpectedly, it was Karin that shook him out of his reveries, contributing and aiding them with a kind of level-headedness he didn't expect from her. "You would have started an international incident Suigetsu. It wouldn't do us any good."

And then, the devilish cat, whose presence Sasuke had already and quite blissfully had forgotten about, showed his fangs towards them right before he started grooming his paws, as if bored, the topic of their conversation not striking his fancy furthermore, all while dropping hints with same elegance as one might have dropped bombs. "Well, the Raikage is already on the right way to do so. It wouldn't have mattered anyway."

For a moment, everything seemed to stop.

The silence was overpowering in the room what with all of them waiting for the fur ball to further elaborate. Even to Sasuke's prodding gaze, the cat was only tempted to answer. But in the end, he still did, although, cheekily. "I got into the ANBU quarters… and they are really dumb. When they think you are an ordinary cat, then you can get to know a lot of things."

"Speak," was what Sasuke more like growled than ordered to the joy of the kitty that seemed depressed not even five minutes ago at the loss of the little girl he grew to love.

And the ninneko sighed with just as much natural bravado as Suigetsu seemed to posses on his better days. "Dear Raikage wanna use Sakura. Keep her in Kumo for an extended period of time. Or something," he managed something like the cat equivalent of shrugging as he still perched gracefully on the table they have had breakfast on just this morning. "They usually speak in some local code. Sadly, I'm not well-versed in it as of yet."

"That's all?" Karin prodded further, her brain already analyzing every miserable piece of information the cat had managed to dump on them, making connections and adjoining the belonging puzzle pieces with her glasses glinting in the ambiguous lightning of the room.

The cat, noticing the dedication of the red-headed, reluctantly continued. "Sakura did give information concerning her mission to an outsider. And one of your teammates had nearly died because of it. She is to be interrogated soon, I'm sure of it."

"Fuck" was how Suigetsu contributed, bemoaning the coming of a headache that was already threatening him.

"Why?" Sasuke asked in the only way he knew how: demanded. The other questions that seemed to overpower his mind remained unsaid as he kept trying to solve the issue. Or at least figure out the proper steps for _damage control_.

What the fuck did the Raikage think? For what did he create this whole charade? What was that damned fool playing at?

Sasuke didn't know. Couldn't understand. But he would be damned if he let that old fool do as he pleased.

"They need her in the hospital I guess. Something about being understaffed," Then, the annoying fur ball shook his head as he contemplated different _possibilities_, huffing irritatedly in his efforts. "Or maybe, the Raikage has heard about Konoha's new medical programs. He might want advancements."

The stunned muteness that followed prompted a heavy sigh from Sasuke. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose as he messaged his face in total despair. Problems—it felt like he always just collected more, slowly getting buried by them, and never managing to completely solve any of them.

But in the end, he was relieved that the damned cat didn't comment on the mistakes he had made, like last time.

* * *

_A/N: At first I would like to thank you for the overwhelming love you all have for this story! It really is amazing to see you get so invested in this creation of mine. But it seems there are some issues I need to address.  
__It's okay to disagree but it is not okay to abuse authors for their works. We're doing this for free. If you do not agree with what we write just 1, ignore it, 2, share it with the author of the story, but do so without being rude and most of all, without sending them death threats 3, write your own story where everything happens to your liking. Most of all, I'm writing this story for myself. And writing is only a hobby to me as of yet. I do not need to share this. But I do anyway because there will always be someone out there who will enjoy it. And that's enough of a reason for me.  
_


	9. Relief

_A/N: so after everyone's life got on hold and nearly everyone is quarantined, I thought it was time to finish writing this chapter. Hope you like this. And hope you can get an even deeper understanding of Sasuke's actions with this. Have a nice time reading this, and I swear everything will be explained in a few chapters concerning this arc of the story! :)_

* * *

**Relief**

* * *

Three days.

It took three days of hiding inside the hospital, of pretending to do anything useful, butting in during examinations and absently scanning over cases and reports, but only ever actually going around Juugo's room and sipping coffee from the cheap vending machine from the second aisle, the taste of emptiness striking her tongue with familiarity.

Three days since she hadn't seen Karin or Suigetsu. She knew they were around—Karin was there in the labor, testing and experimenting with different materials without rest, digging through archives and cases of poisoning she somehow got the permission to ram through. And Suigetsu, he was somewhere around always, out of sight, but not out of way, hidden in plain sight, but under ANBU supervision. Once, she had caught him lounging on the roof of the hospital. What he did there, now she had no idea. Or that how they got away with breaking the rules Kumo had set.

But most of all, it also meant three days since she had left Sasuke on the mountaintop.

Sakura sighed as she stroked down the blanket over Juugo's body. She knew he was close to awakening—she had made sure that his dose of sedatives were lowered and he received all the care Kumo's hospital was able to provide.

So when he, finally, after long hours of looking at his contorting face and as the painkillers burnt away in his system, woke up—it felt like relief. Similar to a fresh breath of air that flooded her lungs after long days spent in an industrial area, when she was finally away from it, in the woods and away from others.

It was a breath full of lightness and so much calm. Much like a breath she took when she saved lives. Because she had done it. She had saved Juugo.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" it repeated on her chapped lips as a broken prayer to some unknown deity, and Sakura could feel tears gathering in her eyes as she held his weak, but enormous hand in hers. With her voice raspy, she breathed out more apologizes to the barely-conscious man, who couldn't even focus his eyes on her as of yet.

She let her tears freely slid down on her face.

It took maybe over thirty minutes while he couldn't even recognize her, watching the crying woman at his bedside with his unseeing, glassy eyes, not understanding, but not without his senses as he didn't even register the warm hands embracing his with a crushing hold. Juugo was awake—but not yet conscious enough for reality.

And it was relief that made it impossible to make a coherent thought after endless apologizes. Because he was awake. Even if not okay and not ready for duty, not ready for being released from here and not ready for even understanding—Juugo was patched together, breathing and awake. And from that alone, Sakura somehow felt everything would turn out to be all right.

Suddenly, it was a sob that broke through her throat as she was finally able to let go of his hands and hugged her arms around herself, trying to keep that pure relief inside and controlled, under her own hold, but it was with little to no success. Sakura hiccuped in a way that made her throat dry and her lungs feel constricted and she wanted to do so many things to show how very happy she felt at that very moment.

"Miss Sakura?" The weak man on the bed asked after a while, now his wide pupils drawn to the pink of her hair and Sakura sighed, her eyes still red from crying and itching. In the end, somehow he was conscious _enough_, but not fully yet.

"I'm so glad," was what she blurted out, her entire body trembling under his heavy, lidded gaze. "Everything would be okay, Juugo, just a few more days," she breathed and he tried nodding to her, but Sakura only smiled, shaking her head and showing him with this that _there was no need_ and she _understood_ _anyway_.

And she knew how in-tune Juugo was with the world around him—Suigetsu had told her many wild stories with taming animals that had no business with getting chummy with humans—so it was really no surprise that he had picked up on her quite palpable guilt, even if he had just awoken from a week-long coma.

"You shouldn't be… feeling so—so bad," he offered her with his brown eyes unwavering, barely able to speak, his throat dry and his mind muddy, no doubt, but still, unable to lift a comforting hand on her shoulders. Maybe she would have been unable to bear its weight.

Or maybe, it was simply just that: an impossibility for the man as his entire body was so entangled in various beeping machines that he would have destroyed half of them had he actually made sudden movements.

But Sakura let a weak smile lift her lips upwards, "You've no idea." And she was very thankful for Cheetah as her loyal ninneko chose that moment to rub against her ankle. It saved the kunoichi from another sobbing session.

However, before he could have even entertained the thought of answering her, something crossed his features, a mixture of pain, confusion and despair as his eyes seemed to roll inside his skull and his lips whitened to sickly pale. As if he had just remembered what had transpired that faithfully day that had nearly resulted in loosing his life.

Sakura winced at the sight, her suspicion soon becoming their reality when she heard him heave short breaths, panic overwhelming his system and the beeping of the machines became erratic, suffocating, irrevocably hard to bear for the kunoichi.

She took action without a second thought, how it was written in the protocol, what she should do and so she willed herself to at first concentrate on her chakra, calling it out to the tip of her fingers, as she put her hand over his eyes, making him close his eyelids. She let the warm, healing green energy seep into his system, running through his chakra pathway, breaking down any kind of resistance Juugo's body created in a minute's notice.

The carefully enacted procedure let him calm his frantically beating heart, sedating him to a stage where he can do no wrong against his own healing. Where he couldn't even stop Sakura's chakra from working its magic with his organs and restoring blood vessels and remaining damages the angry poisoning had managed to cause.

She was hardly able to keep her composure remembering the last gaze he shot her way. He looked at her like one looked at an ancient and absolute goddess, with deep belief and wonder and Sakura took another breather before she started crying yet again.

Hardly believable, but Juugo somehow still found his strength as he whispered against her fingertips just a few second after she had a dose of her chakra run through his entire system, "What happened?"

"You're safe," she said instead, knowing he wouldn't, couldn't ask more questions as his eyes opening up with unfocused recognition and started blinking up at her slowly, the sedative in her chakra slowly lulling him into a deep slumber. "Everyone's safe. We did it. You don't need to worry, Juugo."

And she knows he couldn't have understood her last few words, but _her patched-up, fragile heart _felt so much more lighter, for the first time in so many week. Her chakra vibrated within her entire system in unresting buzzing that _finally_, something _good_ had happened.

She was relieved—she realized, she hadn't been that for so long. Not happy, and definitely not at her _best_. But _better_—it was getting easier and so much lighter. It felt something like bordering on the slightest layer of happiness.

That day, she forewent coffee. Only this time—she allowed herself to feel better and refused coffee, even if it was a tempting option. Instead, for the first time ever since she had arrived at Kumo's hospital, Sakura turned towards the buffet, which was stacked with snacks to the brim, all colours and fats, something nutritious, something not so much, but manly energy boosters, the kind of things what probably most medics and visitors needed. A kick of energy from mostly junk foods, the breaching of healer's preachings of what was the law and order of a healthy diet.

And Sakura was, though prepared for that kick and quite tempted to go for Naruto's favorite instant ramen that threatened with unholy high level of cholesterol, but in the end, she decided against it.

Today felt _good_—_better_, too. The first time ever since she had stepped into Kumo, she felt _better_ in her skin than in a long while, and she was not about to waste that and give in for more things that could be held responsible for her deteriorating health and muscle mass. So she decided, she needed something to celebrate instead.

So she asked for some pre-packed salad with a light dressing what she hoped wouldn't upset her stomach that had been starved for so long. Even if she hadn't noticed her ever-growing hunger, it was very present right now, her stomach rumbling audibly and demanding its fair share. And not just that! When Sakura had seen the sweets on display, she swore her mouth started watering! She just physically couldn't resist buying something from that rainbow-colored shelf—even if they did not have anmitsu, anything was better than nothing!

The müesli might have been for the best—she nodded to herself in confidence after a brief contemplation as she hoarded all her food back to Juugo's hospital room, giddy like a school girl after a successful day at pre-school.

Down by her ankle, Cheetah hissed in ire as Sakura nearly hopped on his tail, her steps just nearly missing the white fur ball. The last few days, interestingly enough, the cat hadn't left her side, he followed her everywhere, without fail and Sakura felt grateful for it—her companion always being by her provided her with the false sense of safety, even if she knew, inside Kumo, a Konoha nin could never feel welcomed, not even mentioning safe.

She smiled down at the cat apologetically, and Cheetah huffed as an answer.

"What are you playing at?" Sakura murmured to her beloved ninneko when they finally arrived back in Juugo's room, to which said ninneko had the audacity of grinning back up at her, but leaving her without any concrete answers.

"I have my reasons," was what he harrumphed her way. "Or I may just enjoy your company. You never know," he added cheekily, enjoying the way he confused his owner.

The kunoichi giggled at her absurd cat, welcoming him on her lap and offering him a small bite of tomato to which the cat managed to show his disgust just by his mimic alone. Sakura didn't know how he did these things, which seemed more human than pet-like—but it prompted a small laugh from her, that felt ever so liberating to the kunoichi, lifting some weight off of her shoulders.

Looking back down at Cheetah, her loyal cat looked like he had eaten not _a_ canary, but at least a _dozen_ of them.

"Seriously, Cheetah. Answer," she said with slight prodding in her tone and yet, the cat ignored her in a way he did best—pretending to be only an ordinary house cat, playing with her clothing and rolling in her lap in a contented way only a spoilt pet could have achieved.

"No," was what he meowed back and Sakura giggled once more, enjoying the lightheartedness and the her loyal ninneko's effortless nonchalance.

Deciding she could do absolutely nothing to get her cat to cooperate, Sakura popped an olive in her mouth—the tanginess, though stinging her tongue, it didn't take away from the relief of finally allowing herself to enjoy the moment for just a minute or two. The feeling of her stomach finally filling up and the lack of the obi around her waist that restricted her movements after two, long and rough months was welcomed and she relished these moments of calmness that allowed her to _not think_ and shut _the chirping of the chidori_ out of her mind.

Just as she hummed her contentment and was to rise to throw the box and remaining pieces of soggy greenery in the trashcan, Sakura froze mid-motion.

She felt them coming. She felt the ANBU coming, right towards her.

Around her. Every direction. Left, right, up, down, behind and from the front. Around everywhere—pressing towards her with their chakras, their unhidden, pressuring chakra signals that strained against her own.

They were close. So close in fact, that it shouldn't have been a problem to reach her before anyone else was able to.

And how did she not notice it before? They were well in the radius of her her chakra-sensing, trotting in her territory and wrecking havoc with making panic rise to her chest. There were over twenty signals close by—twenty, she could feel creeping closer and probably so much more than weren't so bold.

More who hid under the protection of shadows and blocking her out, avoiding the waves of her chakra and carefully sneaking under her exploration, avoiding that desperate, last minute attempt at trying to get a grasp of her surrounding, of exploring and of trying to protect herself.

They were no fools—Kumo ANBU, that was. They managed to pull this off. They were no fools.

And it felt hopeless to reach out to Team Taka. They weren't as close to get there in time.

She wasn't safe there. She already knew that—the minute she stepped inside the gates of Kumo, somehow, she already had the niggling suspicion that it wasn't safe, they weren't welcomed. They were nothing in the eyes of Kumo shinobi, of Kumo's citizens, yet, they prepared a smaller army against her.

Her _patched-up, fragile heart_ fluttered in her chest, the tension building in her weakened muscles and her eyes tried to focus on every existing direction around her. It was not the time to panic—in fact, she refused to panic. She was the Fifth's apprentice, the head medic of Konoha and the strongest kunoichi of her village.

Sakura could feel Cheetah jumping beside her, shadowing her movements and already hissing even though the ANBU had yet to appear.

What did they want form her, anyway? What did she do wrong? They should have had no reason to go against her. To turn against her.

And what was she to do with Juugo? She couldn't effectively protect the both of them, him, Cheetah and herself, not without sacrificing something in exchange. Her attention, her skill, her proficiency could slip so easily when the floor was slipped under her toes.

She didn't have any part in Sasuke's former misdeeds. She didn't try to capture Killer Bee. And she didn't treat any other patients in the hospital beside Juugo. She couldn't have gone wrong with that.

But most of all, she couldn't understand what Kumo wanted. Just what did she do so wrong that could warrant the wrath of the Raikage?

_'I won't say sorry for wanting to save and help her.'_

The realization hit her in a way she was hardly able to keep her footing. _Natsume_. That little girl. That foolish, lanky teenager that knew nothing of the path she walked on. The one who lost the most during her mission—her life. That little girl who never should have been there, in that god-forsaken _brothel_, selling away her body, her soul and her entire being.

She bit the inside of her cheek. _Natsume_. She was the reason. Not Sasuke, or Team Take. Not even Juugo and him using up one room of that outdated hospital. It was Natsume and Sakura's nearly deadly mistake of believing in that innocent, kind face.

_Thinking, thinking and not able to stop thinking_, Sakura trembled in the hospital ward, her hand holding on the iron frame of Juugo's bed, gripping with desperation and trying to keep her footing, getting her body to work in the way her mind was urging it do so and bracing herself for the confrontation.

_'I won't say sorry for wanting to save and help her.'_

_Natsume_. It was all because of her stupidity. She could blame no one else.

"Sakura," she heard Cheetah try to gain her attention, but control, that precious control was slipping out of her very hands, however hard she was gripping the iron frame and she could do nothing as the silence kept stretching and stretching and her chakra rippling and fighting and not yet yielding to her wishes.

Once again, the pressure on her forehead intensified. Her _proudest mark, byakugou_, wanted to break free, cracking up on her forehead, begging to be released, all while the ANBUs were surrounding them, tempting her with the possibility of winning and Sakura was hardly able to stop it, and not crack it open.

She didn't let the _byakugou, her proudest mark_, gain its freedom.

Before she could blink, they were everywhere. Every side of her—just as she had thought, much more than twenty of them, cramped in the tiny hospital room and still, many more on their ways, coming to her exact location.

She heaved a breath.

"Haruno Sakura."

And she felt the blood freeze in her veins as she looked up with eyes alike a deer caught in headlights, unable to move, unable to rebel and unable to control and gain her footing, the ANBUs, feeling her doubts and uncertainty, circling around her like hungry predators ready for the kill.

She couldn't help but imagine, the feeling akin to the terror of a sheep thrown amongst a dozen of wolves. It was unreal. And yet, she could do nothing to stop it. She looked down at the floor's tiling, submitting and _giving up_, so weak and so helpless.

"We are under strict orders to deliver you—"

"Shut it."

_Sasuke?_

His cold voice, the cold voice of her former teammate's rang through a room. It seemed much like he didn't only command a measly team of four, his entire presence radiated the strength of a leader of thousands of battalions.

Sasuke was standing in front of her, his Susanoo alit and enveloping them in its protecting, lilac shine. His shoulders were tense, squared and clad in protective gear, not quite armor, but proper shinobi attire she hadn't noticed before under the heavy cloak he tended to wear to everywhere, be it summer or winter, inside or outside.

This way, everyone could see the several weapons not quite hidden from the eyes of professionals. The katana at his hip. The kunais around his belt and in his pouches, and the several tattoos that had been probably inked by a professional fuinjutsu master. It was unreal how he created a weapon even from his flesh and blood.

Then again, his deadliest weapons were too parts of his body. Sakura didn't need to see it to know that the _jarring red of the Sharingan_ was ablaze and paired with _the hypnotizing lavender of his Rinnegan_, and all that, was enough to make the ANBU take collectively some cautious steps backwards.

And that was when the Raikage himself decided to join the bunch.

He strode in the room with his back straight and face stern, ever so regal and militaristic, starring them down with his eyes not even hiding, but rather, broadcasting his contempt and irritation with the pair of them. He had the distinct aura of _all bad and dangerous and bloodied and dead_.

"What is the meaning of this, Raikage?" That moment Sasuke didn't bother with exchanging pleasantries with a man whose guts he hated anyway, and so, he didn't bother with giving proper respect to the leader of the nation either.

To Sakura's ears, his booming voice felt equal to Kumo's first person's, anyway.

But the huge man's annoyance, paired with his fury was palpable in the air, his eyes refocusing on the Uchiha shielding the tiny medic, _the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch, _behind his back, hardly seen and noticeable and Sakura trembled under the heavy gaze of the Raikage, fearing for Sasuke, even if he didn't deserve it. Even if he didn't need it.

But instead, it was one of the ANBU on their far left that dared to speak up again.

"Haruno Sakura are to be arrested under the charges of betraying her village, ignoring the rules of the Allied Nations, direct causation of death and—"

And Sakura knew she should have listened, she knew she should have just shut it and accept the heavy list of her sins, but the word death had unhinged something and she was suddenly angry, so angry that she let her chakra roll over the room, malicious and ready to break free, in sync with Sasuke's own darkness.

The ANBU hardly perceptibly, thanks to the porcelain mask hiding his features, flinched.

"Death?" was what she muttered under her mouth, her eyes widening, not able and not willing to believe the accusation.

Her chakra was heavy in the air, and the pressure on her forehead returned, _the byakugou, her proudest mark_, audibly cracking, eager for a brief release and eager to mingle with Sasuke's to cause destruction to this wretched nation that had everything to do with that god-forsaken mission and the death of the innocent, little girl.

"The little girl. The leak. Remember?" The presumable ANBU captain added cockily, hiding his sudden, rising fear, his eyes glinting maliciously at the medic, as if he hadn't felt the roll of her chakra, eager for destruction, not yielding, but rather, blazing up even more.

Before she could answer with a physical blow and have that cocky ANBU thrown across some wall, but preferably through a few buildings, Sasuke stepped forward, letting out more than a whiff of murderous intent that had even the Raikage lose a snippet of his confidence.

"And under what regulations do you have the rights to do that?" His voice was ever so sharp, that cold levelheadedness was back and the tensing in his shoulders was expanding to his forearm, to his neck and to his jawline as he clicked his teeth together, hissing like a feral animal, ready to protect what he considered _precious_.

And it was only a Raikage that dared to answer, answer to the reformed criminal that alone nearly managed to rage a war against the Allied Nations. The traitor that had enough power to seal a goddess and the man that had experienced enough trauma to turn it to his advantages. _The lost boy from the cursed clan_ wasn't known for giving up.

Yet, the Raikage fired his shot.

"She is in the land of Lightning," he snorted their way, his mouth twitching. Whether he wanted to restrain a winning grin or he was trying to mask his nervousness when faced by the two heroes of Konoha, Sakura didn't know, but hadn't really had the mind to speculate, either. "She is to play by our laws."

To no surprise, it didn't even take Sasuke a minute to refute his claims, his hand twitching for the kunai at his side, which obviously didn't go unnoticed by the hoard of ANBU that kept circling around him, but unable to reach and harm them.

"We're not you citizens." To which the Raikage harrumphed, in a way that was no way befitting of his social standing. "Neither are we your shinobi."

And it was the truth, even if the Raikage was fuming, and lightning was cracking by his fingertips, hardly noticeable, but still very present. Even if he was a leader of a shinobi village, he had no authority over them.

The answer was Sasuke's own chakra, his own, single hand also enveloped with the slightest cracks of lightning.

With the ever-so constant _chirping of the chidori_ inside her head, Sakura bit into her lip, calming herself. That moment, she was very grateful for the existence of Susanoo. Nothing could harm her inside. Nothing.

Not even Sasuke.

"You're borrowed." The man clad in the white robes huffed, his patience waning. He strained to keep his head clear as he looked down at the pair of Konoha shinobi, protecting each other and at any moment, ready to release an apocalypse over his village just to spite him. "A special squad that was assigned under me for the duration of your mission."

Sasuke let _the jarring red of his Sharingan_ refocus on him, his dark chakra swirling within the room which made a few ANBUs gag already and step backwards. He threatened with a genjutsu, toying with the people's senses around them, of those people's that were just installed there to be pawns in the game of kings. "We were assigned the mission by Kakashi. We owe you no explanation. Sakura did nothing to warrant _your_ order against her."

"We're not repeating her charges. I ordered her arrest." And then, the Raikage looked right at her, his eyes diving right in as he tried to reason with her. "Haruno, you are talented for a kunoichi. Let us, Kumo handle this and the ANBU can find a solution to your sins. We can wash your name clean. We, Kumo, can fix it." And even if they were absurd reasons, she couldn't stop listening.

She couldn't stop listening, _thinking and thinking and thinking_, her _patched-up, fragile heart _thumping synchronised with _the chirping of the chidori_ thundering in her ears and her forehead tingling with the _byakugou_ wanting to get free and suddenly it was hard to keep _her head held high_ while _her patched-up, fragile heart _was _weighed down, down, down_ by the guilt eating her away from her very insides.

And then, the ANBUs, the few who hadn't got sick from the intensity of the clashing powers, of the darkness tantalizing her own lightness and combining them against the wrath of the Raikage, those who were ignorant of all these, were able to come closer and Sakura fearing the situation getting worse and dizzy from the pressure on her forehead, stepped just a barely out of the protecting veil of the Susanoo.

And she was unable to take a single step forwards to meet the damned ANBU halfway, before a kunai imbedded itself just right in front of her, in her path, making her instinctively back away.

Even if he did not indicate it, she knew the kunai was thrown by Sasuke. His angered gaze shooting her way was evidence enough.

"I am her squad leader. She does what I say." As if just to prove his claims, he ordered her. "Sakura, step back." And his eyes were back to the Raikage, his tone ever so dangerous and dark with ill intentions. Even though he hadn't said what he wished what happened to the Raikage, it didn't take a genius to know it was nothing good. "Whatever issues you have, you are free to talk it out with Kakashi. But not with us."

And it was easy to spot several of the ANBU being scandalized by the way Sasuke simply told their leader to fuck off.

"It's a mistake how he lets you roam freely, Uchiha." Was how the Raikage answered in his desperation, eager to draw at least the simplest of hit to the Uchiha, even if he was unable to deliver the main blow.

"The moment Juugo is ready for the journey, we're out of here, do not worry. Konoha will be more careful with aiding your village after this fiasco. The abduction-attempt at someone crucial to our village, for something that was ordered by you and forced on one of my men, huh," He sighed, and for emphasizing his point with a kind of theatrics, Sakura didn't know he was able to show, but she needed to realize there were many faces of Sasuke she hadn't yet seen or hadn't ever known or been aware of in the first place.

_Wait. The Raikage's order forced on someone?_

The Raikage cursed hardly audibly as he left the hospital ward with his cape billowing after his form and that very moment, when she was sure no one was paying attention to her, Sakura slumped down at the base of the bed, her hands still gripping the iron frame of the bed and Cheetah already up in her lap.

She wasn't even aware of Sasuke's continued presence in the small hospital ward or of the dent in the iron she had caused with her grip. It didn't matter she had so many questions she was craving the answers for. It didn't matter she couldn't understand.

There was only one things that mattered now.

The only one thought running around her mind, the one feeling overriding and overpowering everything else, every other sensation and any other of her thoughts.

_Relief_. It was pure relief that flooded her mind.

Thank _god_, Sasuke had managed to arrive in time.


	10. Leap

_A/N:_ _Hope you like it this. Sorry for disappearing. Life got overwhelming at some point, now it's better._  
_Sending some positive energy during this world-wide shit time. 3_

* * *

**Leap**

* * *

One step closer, two steps backwards. They were always like that.

It took all the control she had not to destroy Suigetsu right on the spot. It took every last nerve, every last feeling of remorse in her body to not release even a tad bit of chakra into her punches—because they were painful enough without it and because with chakra, those punches might have been borderline lethal even for Suigetsu—and even more, it took everything, the last tidbit of her will, the last piece of resistance out of her to keep herself standing upright.

Even keeping herself upright was hard after hearing what Suigetsu wanted to tell her. After hearing what he did. _No that's not right_—a rational portion of her mind protested. What he was forced to do it. _Forced_.

And above all, it was a thing that he wasn't able to undo and to change. What he had done, _was done_. No way to turn back time. No way to undo sins no one was deserving of.

Not even a contract killer.

Suigetsu was decent. He wasn't a man of honor, no definitely not, and neither was he kind or merciful when they were _working_, but Suigetsu was decent and he was loyal, so loyal and so accepting of so many things others might have frowned upon. He was a man, who had been on the wrong path, but he wasn't entirely rotten to the core. Even if he was a _killer_.

Because he was able to save so many of the other girls. Those girls were back with their families, from where they were abducted from. They were back with some more money that Suigetsu had managed to snitch from one of the safes that Kumo's ANBU hadn't noticed. Those girls went back to their families and they were now at a better place, not in a brothel, used and forced to do ungodly work.

But still, there was one thing Suigetsu couldn't do. He was unable to save _Natsume_.

And Sakura knew, she simply knew that he would have let the girl run. Otherwise, Suigetsu would have let the girl run away, just because of her. The only reason he wouldn't have murdered Natsume in cold blood when he found out what happened to Juugo was because Sakura had taken her under her wings.

But that time, Suigetsu didn't know either. He had only a snippet of information and a verdict of a foreign Kage hanging over his head. Suigetsu didn't have a choice. He couldn't have done anything else.

And Sakura knew that. Even if _her patched-up, fragile heart_ was breaking, knowing that Natsume's blood was on Suigetsu's hands, was painful. Even if, deep down, she knew Natsume would have ended up dead long before the whole scam unfolded itself.

If it wasn't Suigetsu, it would have been someone else. The Raikage. Sasuke.

Or herself.

Natsume was _her_ mistake. So it would have been only logical that _the honor of the kill _would have fallen on her. Even if now, the Raikage decided Natsume's death was enough to pull an arrest-attempt over her, had she brought the girl to Kumo, she would have died a more cruel death and she, _the strongest kunoichi with the healing touch_ would have been hailed for her bravery for exposing a spy.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" Sakura cried out, her fists shaking as she aimed one more punch at Suigetsu. That punch felt pulled, somewhat off and it backfired with her shoulder nearly getting dislocated thanks to her uncoordinated strength.

Though that punch wasn't lethal. Not the slightest. It was only angry. Actually, if anything, that punch was more lethal to her. It was only a little something, a little, lost and last part of her fury that was ready to injure. Ready to cause wounds more than bone-deep, but decidedly not lethal.

She could never do lethal on a comrade. Even if they weren't in the same team. Suigetsu worth so much more as a pawn to Konoha than the life of _Natsume_. The little girl who got caught between forces she couldn't resist. The forces that had teared her tiny body up into scatters and left her pieces in the mud, forever lost in one of the forests under Kumo's rule.

The fifteen-year-old who shouldn't have been there at all. But still, the same fifteen-year-old who nearly brought demise on them in her wake. The same fifteen-year-old that Sakura trusted. The same fifteen-year-old who was a _mistake_. Haruno Sakura's sole mistake and no one else's.

And she knew her voice sounded shrilly in the quiet, lush forest of the border of Kumo and that her chakra was fluctuating under her tight hold, wanting to break out, crying for release and ready to destroy, so forceful and so raw with power.

The pressure on her forehead increased ever so much, _the byakugou, her proudest mark_, tantalizing with a slow dance of utter destruction.

But she knew, had she hit Suigetsu with all her might, she would have needed to say goodbye to one more friend of hers. And right now she needn't. She couldn't. And she wouldn't.

The trembling of her limbs and of her voice did not want to stop, even as the the earth split under her feet and under her weight, under the force of her chakra, crumbling to little particles and grinding the gravels under her sandals to powder, but Sakura just simply didn't care.

She didn't let loose, yes, but she didn't hold back her raw power either.

She hadn't it in her to care about destroying the environment anymore. That, she could damage. Plant would grow back. They would nourish. The nearby river would find itself back to its rightful route. Animals, even if they ran from her presence now, escaping in frenzy, would come back and repopulate this nook of the woods too.

She could destroy. She was allowed to destroy. She could grind anything to dust. The ecosystem would repair itself in such a rich place, it would have just taken some time. But all of that, all of those tempting options, they didn't seem to be enough when faced with the temptation of getting to Suigetsu.

But there was one thing she couldn't have done. Not even to Suigetsu, not to Team Taka, who weren't exactly her team anymore, but they were there. They have seen her in low, so so low and they were fine to be around. Loyal to Konoha, to the core. Though, she was sure that was more because of Sasuke, than anything

That was why she could have never ever done anything, that was even close to the imaginary of _all bad and dangerous and bloodied and dead._

The realization was scary—realizing, they were important to her. Even if it was not because of the time well-spent together, but rather, because of a link between her and Team Taka. Sakura knew that, was painfully aware of it, even if she wasn't their teammate, they were connected. Connected not exactly because of Sasuke, but in some way or another, they _were_.

And even if she wanted to destroy Suigetsu, even if she had that strong desire to hurt him the same way he had hurt Natsume, she couldn't do that. Needn't. Shouldn't.

When she hit a tree, rather than Suigetsu's head, the enormous oak split into two, the bark exploding in the air and the shrapnel of wood grazing her skin, Sakura heard the birds bemoan the loss of their home, fleeting far away from them, from the fight and from the _destruction_.

For them, that was all she and Team Taka. _Destruction_. _Chaos_ unbound. And a pointless place where it all unravelled. Where a small portion of her raw power got released.

On the verge of hysterics, but maybe, already in the middle of it, Haruno Sakura stomped her feet in rage, hardly able to control her wild flames of fury that had ignited the moment Suigetsu threw caution to the wind and confessed her his sin.

She was hardly able to not cause a right-out earthquake with her stomping. "You… Suigetsu, you killed—, fuck, I hate it?"

And it sounded more like a whine, and unsure statement that got through the tight lock of her teeth and was more like hissed in the contract killer's way in desperation than a real accusation of sins. Sakura's voice was full of desperation, still hoping for his denial at the sixth time in a row after he had taken the blame for taking a seemingly meaningless life.

But no life should be meaningless. Even if they were shinobi, soldiers, and not entirely humans.

There was only confirmation once again and raw pain, as Sakura continued, a whine accompanying yet again and her hisses and mewls sounded even more like an abandoned puppy's after each and every time. A kind of whine a puppy would make in the pouring rain, so utterly wet and alone, without a home and without a family to trust in.

Without home and without hope. She felt empty and so utterly betrayed. By Natsume. By Kumo. Kind of by Suigetsu, too.

And that moment, when she questioned him again, hoping in a different answer, but obviously still getting the same, the ever so theatrical and careless Suigetsu looking genuine, and he looked so guilty, so understanding of her anger, of her throwing fists and hurtful words in his way so he did not avoid her fist when it flew towards his face once more.

So ready for punishment as if what he had done, wasn't ordered by the damned Raikage!

She didn't know how—mostly because she could not see from the tears that hadn't run down her face yet, but were blurring her vision—but she managed to hit Suigetsu in a way that the reformed nunkenin collapsed on the ground and asked for her to forgive him, with a bruise decorating his whitened face.

"I fucked up…," he breathed out, his lips oozing some blood all while his arms tentatively circled her waist and dragging her down to the muddy soil too, coaxing her to understand and to not lose herself in her rage. To stay with him and understand his burdens. "Please forgive me. I really… couldn't do anything else."

Being a shinobi was _shit_. But nothing could have proven that statement any better than moments like this. When the mission fractured them, deep down, causing pain, leaving marks and scars for a lifetime and making them do things that wasn't fitting to their positions as elites.

Sakura didn't care about anything anymore. She bended to his wills, let her forehead rest on his shoulder, her breathing evening out, her rage still suffocating her, but breathing slowly becoming easier and so much lighter as Suigetsu's musky scents filled up her lungs.

He was dirty, muddy and they were on a journey. But it somehow calmed her, knowing that everyone was equally in shitty conditions. They were in the same boat. Together.

So she let herself sink into the mud with Suigetsu holding her up and just barely above surface. The thoughts still thundered in her head, but the uncomfortable pressure on her forehead slowly dissipated, her cracking seal slowly reforming to a _whole_ form those tiny parts and her chakra though still agitated, bear the burdens so much better now.

His confession was so sincere that Sakura was hardly able to keep her composition either. With her hands shaking, she tried to find hold in the slimy grass, however only able to grasp mud with her hands sinking _down down down and down_ into it and the uncertainty just making her want to cry even more.

"I know… I know," she whispered back to Suigetsu, so raw and so broken, knowing that he really couldn't have done anything. He wouldn't. Needn't have done anything else.

They stayed like that for a few long moments. For a few long breaths. Longer than the sunset. Until there was barely even the slightest stream of light on the sky.

They stayed like that just until she was able to keep the sorrow in, contained and under her control, keep the tears at bay and be able to support her own weight on her two legs and to be able to drag herself out of Suigetsu's hold, her knees brown from the mud and her hands dirty as she fixed her shocking, blonde hair.

He was reluctant to let her go, to let her stand, but mostly, to let her out of his sight, but her words of assurance, of pleading and of endless hopes were enough to make him stop with his mothering.

"I would like to be alone," though, what she didn't say was that she wanted to _mourn_. In peace.

To mourn that foolish fifteen-year-old properly. To mourn that precious, naive little girl in a way she might be undeserving of, but in the way Sakura craved before she went insane.

Suigetsu nodded her way, not quite understanding, but not ready to ague with her and Sakura smiled but it was really hard to maintain that practiced smile, the smile she used for shinobi duties, cordial but not reaching her eyes, the smile that was nowhere near real smile.

How could she smile a true smile his way when knowing he had killed _Natsume_ with his own hands?

Even if they were all shinobi. Even if they had killed many times before. It still hurt.

Heck, Sakura was thirteen when she killed for the first time. It shouldn't have been a big deal.

But it was.

When you knew the victim, when they were more than faceless enemies, it really, truly was hard to move forward and accept, forgive and then forget the sins they have all committed. And even if she loved Suigetsu, it was still hard to accept him as he was. Accept him as her always friend, because all of them had done heinous things under the name of commands and orders.

Juugo needed to gain back his strength anyway. They were staying here for the night—she already figured that out as she settled down by the river that run across Kumo's borders.

It was quite calming, what with Cheetah in her lap as she watched the last streams of disappearing daylights perched up on a stone, her feet floating in the freezing river and _her patched-up, fragile heart_ dully thumping in her ribcage.

_At least, hers was still beating._

She relished that moment. The calmness, the silence and the solitude. It meant so much for her, that moment of _not thinking_. The moment without the constant _chirping of chidori_ in he ears. And the moment where she was able to turn it all off and enjoy the feeling of the breeze on her skin.

Not the harsh wind of the mountaintop. Neither the thunders outside of the brothel. No, just the slow current of the quiet river, the night and the sky, the thousands upon thousands of starts and Cheetah lazing in her lap. The lingering warmth of a day turning into the chill of the night, the breeze caressing her skin and the leaves rustling around her, the freshness of the air and the closeness of nature.

It was long due that she experienced something alike. Being free. Being so close to feeling carefree and true, like the naive, little girl back in her teens, not weighted down by her responsibilities, by her duties and by life itself.

Not weighted down by choosing the path of shinobi. A path that was paved with _all bad and dangerous and bloodied and dead._

"Sakura?" The voice behind her was so hesitant in reaching her, and Sakura needed a calming breath before she turned back towards Karin, standing awkwardly by an enormous willow tree, her weight shifting from one leg to the other, not quite looking at her, as if ashamed of being caught in the act. "I know I'm not your go-to partner for pep talks, but you can…unleash it now, if you want," and her proposal was so sincere and yet so reluctant, so cautious yet so eager that Sakura heaved a breath and slumped her shoulders, ultimately tempted by the offer, and so eager and ready to accept.

The smile on her lips, this time, was closer to a real one that to a practiced one, but still not quite reaching her eyes.

Even before Karin sat next to her, Sakura started talking, the words tumbling out of her mouth with unstoppable vigor and yet so quietly the gentle breeze of the wind would have been able to blow them away.

"You know I…wanted to have her, _Natsume_, transferred to Konoha if, well… to make her my apprentice." She confessed so uncouth and so honestly, yet so faint and so insecure that she was afraid the other kunoichi couldn't have caught her words.

"That would have been… well, nice, I mean, she…" Karin commented absently, not really sure what to say yet, trying her best with shooting her shots and offering a decent conversation to another kunoichi in need. And Sakura appreciated it so much, because even if Karin didn't know what to do, _she tried_ and it was so much more already than what most people usually did, with not just trying to understand, but offering up a few quiet moments of peace for her.

Haruno Sakura couldn't even conceal how much that simple action meant as she let a few tears freely roll down her face.

"Yeah, it would have been," she confessed.

And Sakura remembered those smiles of the lanky teenager, how afraid she was in the brothel, how childish, how real and most of all, how _human_ she was. How human she appeared to be. How very vulnerable and yet so strong she was. How very talented she was. But most of all, she remembered how very _young_ she was.

Natsume was _fifteen_. She _died_ at _fifteen_. Caught in a game so much bigger than her. So much more dangerous that little girl ever could have been.

But she was _shinobi_, just like them. Committing _sins_ under _orders_. And just like them, loosing a little bit of her _humanity_ day after day in service.

She wanted to sigh into the quietness of the almost-night but instead, a sob brought through.

"I should have been more careful," was what she managed to utter and Sakura could see the shock in Karin eyes, seeing her bawl her eyes out and not knowing if she should hold her or offer up a tissue or _what_ to do really, and Sakura would have found her splutter and bubble hilarious, but she was too engrossed in her miserly, hugging herself with her own arms, so tight, trying to keep it in, keep it _together_, but clearly not managing. "I should have been cleverer. I am a kunoichi. I'm Haruno Sakura dang it. I should have been _better_."

Never the _best_, not even _better_, now just _good enough_.

And for the first time, that guilt bubbled up in overwhelming waves and she did not even care if she showed Karin, or anyone else, really. All she could feel is Cheetah furrowing his face in her stomach, trying to console her while he was also struggling to keep it _together_.

Cheetah had also grown to love Natsume. They liked her. And they made a nearly fatal mistake in trusting her.

"She was just… too convenient to be there. She was just there the right moment. In the _too right_ moment," Sakura continued rambling, never stopping, only for heaving sobs, her throat drying and her lips trembling and bitten to raw red. "I should have been more suspicious about her. And I know I somehow knew, I had a feeling. But she was just… so innocent. I didn't—didn't want to believe in it. Believe in that."

She should have known better. Sasuke was a terror at fifteen. A traitor, a criminal who had wrecked a Kage summit. A teenager who had killed his own brother. For god's sake, Naruto, Ino, even the _ever so lovely and angelic_ Hyuuga Hinata too. Heck, _she, herself, the strongest kunoichi with a healing touch_ was a terror at fifteen. And they were raised in Konoha, a considerably more lenient shinobi village, compared to even some other villages.

And she tried squeezing her mouth shut, stopping those treacherous words that made her mistake even more apparent and _real_, her teeth grinding together in her efforts, but really, it had no effect at all when the words wanted to come out.

Like alcohol on a night, when partying way too hard, the words were just as unbearable as the vomit crawling up and then burning the throat from the inside, resulting in a mess and in utter helplessness.

But then, Karin spoke.

"Well, weren't you?" Was what the red-haired kunoichi said next, her eyes wide open under the thick lenses of her black glasses, still bewildered to see the Fifth's apprentice so unbound and so raw. "Careful, I mean," she added when seeing Sakura's confusion.

"At first, yes," the Haruno sniffled miserably, still fighting the never-stopping sobs. "Then, I remembered something. She was good, true. But there _are_ prodigies, like Kakashi-sensei and I just… She is—was good in genjutsu, but nothing else, and I thought her shuriken throws looked simply _too awkward _for her to be able to fight, and well, she didn't know what _senbons_ were, and—," and she was unable to finish the sentence, unable to stop and most of all, unable to forget.

"Prodigies, yes, they are scary, leading people by their noses," Karin said in a voice so remorseful, her eyes looking straight up on the waning moon, like reminiscing and being unable to forget one particular memory of hers, too. "Prodigies, huh. Just like… Uchiha Itachi," and she said it so quietly, that for a moment Sakura wasn't even sure she heard the other kunoichi right.

And she, most of all, did not have the slightest idea why Karin said it, unable to even begin to understand why Karin mentioned his name at all, that with so much remorse and with a small smile, which is, strangest of all, not even a _bitter_ smile, but Sakura decided not to ask.

She was unable to form a coherent thought with the issue, anyway, too occupied by her misery.

Maybe it was hours, maybe it was just a few minutes of silence. But slowly, the tightening in her chest eased, and the guilt, slowly, but not quite yet lifted from _her patched-up, fragile heart, _too_. _

Listening to the quiet gurgle of the river helped somewhat, the final silence in her head definitely helped, but most of all, it was Karin's gentle prodding that made that terrible weigh significantly lighter on her heart.

"I just… feel so… so helpless. Now. Been feeling like that, and," Sakura's voice hitched up an octave higher as she made yet another confession to the other kunoichi, "and it just didn't stop. Never stops. I _hate_ it."

And Sakura was surprised to feel a hand on her knee, gripping it with unusual strength and she was even more surprised to look up to Sasuke's very blurry face right in front of her. Him, lowered to the ground, kneeling in front of her—_yielding_ and _giving away control_ and just being simply _there_, so real and so unlike Uchiha Sasuke, _the lost boy from the cursed clan_—while trying to help and being there for her.

He was so humbled in front of her, the end of his cape floating on the surface of the river, his eyes hooded and seemingly, Sasuke looked so eternally calm, the calm Sakura only hoped to be able to ever achieve.

Suddenly, that _first step_ he had taken, back on the mountaintop of Kumo, had made such a _big impact_. _He wasn't kidding_. He trusted her and planned to make her trust him. And his actions in front of the Raikage were enough for Sakura to know that he wouldn't hurt her either.

Not like before. Definitely not like back then.

She never ever imagined him kneeling before her, his knees sinking in the thick mud and his cloak getting dirty, but with so much clarity, with unmeasurable confidence residing in his eyes and with so much gentleness in his simple touch.

It was assurance. It was strength. And it was so many other things. But most of all, it was raw _trust_ in his eyes that that made her heart quiver with something akin to relief.

"Sasuke?" And it was no more alike a tired sigh on her lips, a heavy breath rather than an actual question but he seemed to nod in confirmation.

_I am here. I won't hurt you. I trust you._

With that simple action, somehow, _the lost boy from the cursed clan_ managed to say so much, say all of this _without words_, his eyes bearing into hers, _unabashed and unafraid_, ready to get _under her skin_, get bone-deep or even soul-deep, ready to see her _raw_ and _unclothed_.

"You are allowed to mourn," was what he told her in the end, much in a way that somehow made Sakura believe in his words and _her patched-up, fragile heart_ thumped hopefully, fluttering like the wings of a meek butterfly, so thankful for those simple words. So thankful for him just simply being there.

Seemed like, _he still held her heart in his hand_. Her _fluttering, meek, patched-up and fragile heart_ that he could have wrought out and _destroyed_ anytime.

"Thank you," was how she answered and he stayed just as long as he needed, waiting until her tears dried, until the puffiness of her eyes dissipated or until the redness from her cheeks vanished, when he finally stood up, ready to leave.

Somehow, that moment, needed no more words. His actions were enough of an explanation. He was a leader of his team. Sakura was just maybe, after so many, long and hellish days spent in Kumo, might have just gained a renewed entry.

"Sasuke?" She called out once more, this time, her voice sounding just normal. Not happy, not sad, not even absent. Just normal. The voice she used when conversing with patients. The voice she used unconsciously, that was just so real and so _her_. "Are we… can I sleep near the fire?" He confirmed with a nod to her direction, understanding her meaning.

She might have been a kunoichi, all right, but she wasn't up for guard duty today. Neither was Juugo. Mainly because she had healed many of his injuries and the stress on his system knocked him out immediately. It was Karin, Suigetsu, Sasuke and Cheetah's job for today.

And her team leader understood.

And so, he walked away from her, unbothered by the dripping of his cape and the sate of his clothes, going straight back to the camp where a bright bonfire was already ignited, radiating warmth and light to all of them. Onto all of them.

But then, a thought occurred to her. _She didn't want him to leave_. Not yet. Not like now. Didn't want him to leave her there, behind once more, even though the idea was _beyond_ absurd.

The simple, but so sudden realization felt like a punch to the gut.

_I am here. I won't hurt you. I trust you._

"Sasuke?" She tried again and he turned back towards her, the light from the enormous bonfire lightning his features. Suddenly, he looked so _real _in her eyes. "I want to trust you."

It wasn't quite _I trust you_, and it wasn't a complete denial either. It was a wishful thought, that might become _their_ reality someday, a wishful thought, Sakura choose to work for.

He nodded in understanding. Because even if it was not what he wanted from her, but still, it was a start. A first step forward happened on the mountaintop at Kumo, but instead of stepping backwards two, they had managed to leap forward now. Leap a _huge_ forward.

And for the first time in so long, Sakura didn't have a nightmare _about the lost boy from the cursed clan._

She dreamed of nothing and it was a blessing to her.


End file.
